If you do like ballads...

Subject: If you do like ballads...
From: Brian Peters
Date: 17 May 19 - 11:57 AM

... you might be interested in learning more about them.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: JHW
Date: 17 May 19 - 02:33 PM

I was just looking this morning at this site Child Ballads and reading up about Lord Lovel. The information is overwhelming!

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Brian Peters
Date: 17 May 19 - 03:41 PM

That is one great site. Hosted by Mudcatter Richie Matteson, who brought many of the ballads detailed on his pages to this forum for discussion first.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 May 19 - 02:18 AM

Have to say I much prefer the title of this thread to the other current one
Ballads are like all great art - you have to go to them - they will not come to you
When you make the move - you're hooked
All you can do to encourage others is persuade them that the journey's worthwhile and suggest what to look for
As far as I am concerned, good ballad singing leaves the listener with a memory of the ballad and not the performance
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 May 19 - 10:06 PM

I couldn't agree more Jim with what you're saying here.
The fault lies entirely with my sensibility.
Perhaps one day, I'll get it.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 May 19 - 02:21 AM

If you do, I hope you get as much pleasure out of them as I do/have Al
They really are worth the effort
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 05:58 AM

The site referred to above does have a great deal of information, though as the site itself says, it isn't a finished product, and the 'information' could, I feel, be better set out for easy reading and digestion. I'm not sure that the choice of blue for the text was in line with current thinking on 'readability'. That said, it is a great site and a lot of work has evidently gone into providing a resource for enthusiasts.


If I have read the information right then the earliest record of the song 'Lord Lovel' - Child no 75, also referred to above - was provided by one Horace Walpole who was son of a Prime Minister and also a famous author of a novel that was more or less the first in the fashion for gothic novels.

As so often happens when trying to trace the 'history' of something, claims are made, relating to one Dixon, that the song is an ancient one from Northumberland, but the evidence for this claim isn't clear to me, it may just be Dixon's guess on the topic. (NB If you research Dixon he was a member of the Percy Society and produced a collection called Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England. He based his entry for the song in his work on broadsheets, though he claimed to have known the song for some time).


The term 'Dowsabel', used in some versions of the song, is an English form of a French name, which came to mean 'sweetheart' by a process of generalisation. The earliest occurrence for it in the OED is 16th century. The dictionary believes that the name might have been first used in some pastoral song, but again, no evidence for this guess is provided. Our song isn't 'pastoral' but maybe such songs did make use of French derived names. The authors of the dictionary appear to have been conjecturing. However, for present purposes, I note that pastoral songs don't appear to have been written by the lower orders, as is claimed for folk song. I'm not sure how that piece of information about the name, not given on the web site, fits with the theory of an ancient Northumbrian origin for the song.

We are given what might be called a 'historiography' of the song, a summary of what various 'historians' or 'folklorists' have said about it, but not all of this is particularly convincing or well-referenced and exemplified so that one can chase up the source material. An example is the reference on the web site to Dixon's views on the song. I have no idea how reliable Dixon is as a source.

All this aside, I cannot say that I find the song to be an example of 'great art'. It doesn't seem to me to be particularly skilful. Some versions include cliches such as the milk white horse/steed. The story has been much parodied and no wonder due to the double deaths which seem a bit far-fetched. Probably appealed to Walpole's gothic side? Yes it is about a universal theme 'death' but given I know little and care less about the characters it isn't particularly moving on the topic.

Nor does it seem to me to be at all clear that this must have been written by the 'lower orders' or a member of the 'peasantry'.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 06:21 AM

The other thing that emerged from looking at this web site was a comment (? by Child) that the melody used for the song was crucial in conveying the sentiments, a reminder for me that these are songs not poems to be recited and that the music has 'semiotic' functions.

It seems to me that once you know the story, which is skeletal in this example and many others, the interest in further hearings has to be in the delivery of it, the musical interpretation of it, and that ornamentation and even instrumentation using a range of instruments up to and including digital based music production are all valid ways of making use of the resource provided by the words.

Insisting that the 'story' has to have priority and that anything focused on the singer and their skills is extraneous or a distraction seems to me to be missing the point about ballads as 'songs' and about the uses people make of music.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Howard Jones
Date: 21 May 19 - 06:26 AM

"somme versions include cliches such as the milk white horse/steed. "

Should the familiar phrases in ballads be considered cliches, or are they an essential part of the ballad structure? From a singer's point of view, they make it easier to remember the song, and help to carry the story forward for a line or two without too much effort, allowing you to focus on the material element of the story which comes next. This probably helps the audience too, knowing they are on familiar ground and can relax for a moment.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 19 - 06:34 AM

"I cannot say that I find the song to be an example of 'great art'."
There are many versions of Lord Lovel and no indication whatever that Walpole's was Walpole's was the earliest
The ballad was still extant in various forms in Ireland in the mid 1980s - an indication that it had something going for it
The fact that it was popular with 'the lower orders' for many centuries and that they have proven themselves to be more than capable of songmaking for that length of time gives their claim claim to authorship every bit as likely as that of the hacks - in my opinion, of course
Bronson gives 76 tunes for the ballad - not complete by any means
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 06:47 AM

Howard
Interesting point about function of oft-repeated phrases, and I agree completely, but I'm not sure this doesn't make them less of a 'cliche'. Also for me this detracts from the 'great art' claim.

Interesting points from Jim as usual.

By the way, I didn't say I didn't like the song, merely that the claim that this and similar are 'great art' seems difficult to sustain.


Tell us a little about Bronson's methodology and his aesthetic principles (if any)?

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 19 - 06:56 AM

"Tell us a little about Bronson's methodology and his aesthetic principles (if any)?"
Why - are you challenging his work ?
Incidentally, 'oft repeated phrases' are often known as "incremental repetition" when applied to the ballads (as distinct from choruses and refrains)
They usually act as indications that the plot has moved on in time or distance, or that other changes have taken place
Not 'clichés, but an essential part of the plot
The technique is also used in traditional storytelling
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 07:33 AM

I know about 'incremental repetition', rather like 'repetition with replacement'. That said 'milk white steed' is not an example of that phenomenon.

Why have I asked for information about Bronson's methodologyy and aesthetic principles? Well, first, why not? And second, it seems reasonable to me to think about the reliability of anybody deemed to me an authority. As I have tried to suggest before, quite a bit of work on 'folklore' seems to me to be based around uncritical acceptance and repetition (and yes some of this may even be incremental repetition, let's face it 'history' is a narrative like all the others) of what turns out to be relatively broad conjecture. Nothing wrong with conjecturing and using one's imagination, but helpful to be able to tell, for example, information derived from primary sources from other sorts of of stuff.

By the way, I deliberately stated not that Walpole's was the first version ever but that it is seen as being the earliest known (and we have to accept that he was right about when he first heard it).

Regarding Bronson, it doesn't matter how many tunes he gives for the song, the aesthetic points I made, and that I understand Child to have made, still stand.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 07:47 AM

Should have typed 'deemed to be an authority' not 'deemed to me'.

White horses feature in various mythologies, not least the chivalric type ones with knights on horseback, which this song looks to me like some example of. It also reminds me of Romeo and Juliet to some extent, pared down and robbed of a lot of interest and detail.


And Bronson appears not to have liked the thing at all!


A nice example of 'folklore' on the Mainly Norfork site where somebody says it was first sung by a woman. Where is the evidence for that? See what I mean about needing to check sources and the reliability thereof?


Thanks for the discussion.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 08:07 AM

There is a long discussion of this song on here which I have just found and which seems to back up my thinking in terms of checking the reliability of authorities, and which has the most notable feature that Steve Gardam announces that he is 'with child'. Did he call it 'Archie', I hope not!

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 19 - 08:17 AM

"I know about 'incremental repetition'"
Look it up - it's a basic element of ballad scholarship - milk white steed, lily-white breast, et al are 'commonplaces' not repetition
"Why not?"
Once you start questioning the past work of out leading scholars without providing a rational and workable alternative you are undermining over a century of work
Some decades ago Dave Harker wrote a scurrilous book doing that - little more than a hit-list of everybody who had given us songs and offering nothing in return
Having worked in the building trade, my immediate thought was "it's far easier to pull something down than it is to build something"
You wish to pick away at Child and Bronson, feel free, but you are really going to have to come up with something better than this - an understanding of ballad construction might be a good starting place
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 09:21 AM

Thank you Jim for your helpful and constructive response.

Your building trade analogy interests me. The last but three electricians I had in left me with a non-earthed installation, a plug socket that fell off the wall more or less the first time used, safety signs saying 'do not remove' littering the floor and other faults. One of their men spent a lot of time on the phone discussing the 'trip' he had been on the night before, which no doubt accounted for the hallucinations he was describing as well as his very red eyeballs. The next to the last electrician I had in did a proper inspection of the installation and compiled a list of problems to be put right by the last lot I had in (the last but one was going on holiday). So when I think of the building trade, I think about issues of reliability and confirmation and evidence.

On the positive side the three sets of wire cutters left around by the last lot but three are useful for trimming strings when re-stringing musical instruments.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 19 - 09:41 AM

Sous electricians have become part of the hit list !!
Ah well !!
It is a fairly apt analogy for what is happening big-time in the folk world
When Roud's disappointing book hit the presses the critics were on it lika a shot - "Look - the folk didn't make folk song" - a century's scholarship down the Klarts
For us, Child, Bronson, Sharp - Wimberly was a springboard into a wider understanding of what we were hearing and being told by the singers - and it worked
Placing the songs into a social setting, discovering a massive and somewhat neglected songmaking tradition, listening to the singers claim ownership of the songs, their identification with what they sung.... all putting flesh on the skeleton

I would point out that any problems you found with electricians were almost certainly due to their understanding their trade rather than with the trade itself
As a time served electrician with four decades plus work experience, I refused to register myself as an electrician when I found I would have to sit an exam set by desk-jockeys who wouldn't know one end of a screwdriver from the other
I'm beginning to realise that the same can be applied to Folk songs and ballads
I'll stick with what I think I know rather than start again, if it's all the same with you
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 11:04 AM

Jim

I am sure you are a great loss to the world of electricals, and that your customer service skills were second to none.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST
Date: 21 May 19 - 11:30 AM

"I am sure you are a great loss to the world of electricals, "
Always thought sarcasm to be the lowest form of wit but it gets us no closer to a conclusion on the value (or otherwise) of ballads
Not a bad way of avoiding the points though
In my opinion, the work of Bronson, Child and Sharp were excellent examples of joint effort and co-operation - bringing together the work of many people into one comprehensive whole
Now research has 'gone private', it seems to me that 'folk' has become directionless
There has been lip-service paid to not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, but that seems to be exactly what has happened - the results are depressingly obvious
When will we ever learn (not a ballad, of course
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 11:42 AM

Ps
Like many others in the recent past you're banging your head against a brick wall here. And that particular brick wall ain't gonna be pulled down any time soon, by you, me or anybody else.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 19 - 11:46 AM

" And that particular brick wall ain't gonna be pulled down any time soon, by you, me or anybody else."
You might try arguments rather than insults and excuses Steve
Works a treat where I come from
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 11:52 AM

Been there, done that many times. The brick wall's still there.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 19 - 12:26 PM

"Been there, done that many times. "
Fraid not Steve - you've certainly done your share of patronising, insulting and making excuses, but you've never tackled the major contradictions of your theory - nor are you attempting to now
Anybody can claim to have proved their point, but without the evidence of their having done so.....
Child - Bronson - Sharp and well over a century of scholarship and research ..... it takes giants to bring down giants of that stature
Jim

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 12:43 PM

And there we have it in a nutshell, absolutely typical of the exaggerated claims constantly being made. No-one has attempted to bring down the scholarship of any of those three. We have only, like yourself, admitted that there were flaws in their theories. In the case of Child, by far the greatest of the 3, he was himself constantly re-appraising and doubting his work. We have repeated over and over how all 3 of these great editors made an enormous contribution to our understanding of folksong. But they were not gods!

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 12:58 PM

Ps,
In Walpole's time LL was seen as a burlesque of some earlier ballad no longer extant. It continued well into the 19thc as a burlesque, in fact right up to the Music Hall era. By 1800 it was being printed on broadsides and was taken up by the general public many of whom saw it as a straight song. Its bedfellow is 'George Collins/Lady Alice', also a burlesque. In fact it's quite likely they were either written by the same person for some stage production or one inspired the other. The fact that they were already burlesques didn't stop them being burlesqued even further to some quite grotesque lengths. See The Universal Songster for 1825.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 12:58 PM

The thing is, Jim, you keep referring to the work of Child, but it seems plain to me, and this is just my opinion, that you yourself radically disagree with him. He was utterly plain that the lower orders did not write the ballads, you are convinced that they did.

Similarly, those people who you cite did not always agree with eachother, so the idea that over 100 years some monolithic body of 'knowledge' was built up seems to me simply to radically misrepresent what was done, to misrepresent the contents of this literature about 'folk' and 'ballads'.

I have pointed out to you how racist much of the early 'folklorists' were, and still you are pointing to a century of research that should not be overturned. Surely you of all people would take issue with their view of 'primitive races' ie Native Americans? Instead I get told I am trying to overturn the work of 'giants'.

Many of the questions I am asking are basic ones that 16 year old students of history should be able to ask: Is this a primary source or a secondary source? What bias may be present? How likely is it to be reliable. And in the works of the hundred years that you refer to in the above posts, such questions have been asked. So Percy fiddled with some of his songs. Dixon, one source on Lord Lovel, has been questioned in terms of reliability by others within that same 100 year tradition.

Go read a book I was told. Physician, heal thyself, I am tempted to suggest, at the risk of appearing unmannerly!

Steve, I guess you are right.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 May 19 - 01:17 PM

Not to me, and it wouldn't matter too much if he did - he never made an issue of it and many of his sources spoke out loudly in favour of the idea that folk was the creation of the folk
The early folklorists were products of their time - as slavery was a major part of Bristish society for many centuries, we may as well dismiss anything prior to its being abolished - waddya think ?

You, Steve... and others are offering facile and deeply flawed arguments and no real alternatives
Much of this discussion can be solved by applying a little common sense
If the folk were capable of making folk songs, they probably did
If you believe they weren't, you need to say why
One wonders how so many living at the same time as was an oral tradition and a triving broadside trade, could have got it wrong for so long only to be proved wrong by a few researchers long after all that had died, shuffling papers
Nah - sorry - don't buy it
When somebody puts up a reasonable answer to these, and all the other contradictions, maybe I'll look into it - until then, I'll stich with the giants
Child, Bronson, Sharp and a century or so of research - all wrong - are you people serious, or is this a wind-up !!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 21 May 19 - 01:22 PM

Steve

It seems our posts crossed. Thanks for continuing the discussion on Lord Lovel. That sort of confirms what I had gleaned; interesting that it was regarded by some as a burlesque/parody. Maybe this was precisely because of the somewhat gothic nature of the story (Walpole in particular being bonkers about the gothic), the romantic rose ending, plus the bits of what I have called 'cliche' (would kids today call it a 'trope'?) including the 'milk white horse'? What do you think?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_Hill_House

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 21 May 19 - 02:16 PM

Cramer's Vocal Gems No.30 - 12 Comic Songs also includes Lord Lovel. (see copy at archive or copy at NLS. Published London, but no date that I can see.

Mick

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 02:20 PM

Jim, at the second go, was absolutely correct, they are nowadays referred to as 'commonplaces', although nothing wrong with 'cliche' when applied to a phrase. They include phrases, whole stanzas, and even in a few cases a whole series of stanzas (think 'rose & briar' ending in several ballads, and the sequence of stanzas in which the little foot boy runs off with a message). It's pretty certain that the 'rose & briar' ending was lifted from one of the earlier English ballads, but that's pretty irrelevant anyway as it exists in even earlier Danish ballads and probably others. 'The milk-white steed/hand/skin' can certainly be classed as cliché, but it's still a commonplace going back to manuscript era, so is found in the very earliest ballads. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to find it in pre-ballad material such as the romances. Someone with a knowledge of Arthurian lit will probably tell us it is.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 02:25 PM

Ey up, Mick! Nice to have you in. I have 4 0r 5 copies of original sheet music, all different, c1850s. The main singer seems to have been J. W. Sharp. Apart from the songs themselves I have copies of comic opera posters using LL as the basis for burlettas. It was very 'popular'!

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 02:50 PM

Ps, I can recommend:
Commonplace and Creativity, by Flemming G. Andersen
Morning Dew and Roses, by Barre Toelken
and for 'incremental repetition' and similar, Recentering Anglo-American Folksong, Roger DeV Renwick.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 03:05 PM

Mick
Cramer & Co were under that name and address from 1863 to 1872. But all of the songs in that songster date back to at least the 1820s.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 04:34 PM

Dave, Brian???

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 May 19 - 04:49 PM

See the opening post. Sorry to be obscure!

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 May 19 - 05:06 PM

Okay. Got you.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 May 19 - 06:50 PM

I find ballads challenging to s8ng and enjoyable particularly satisfying areballads that involve audience participation in singing examples my son david or the swan swims so bonny

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 22 May 19 - 07:48 AM

@ D the G

Sorry if I've made the thread drift, it was about learning more, and then somebody mentioned a specific ballad, so I read a bit about that.

And thanks for the constructive comments and helpful suggestions for further reading to Steve.


Generally:

"Cliche and commonplace are chalk and cheese - one is dismissive, the other a simple description - it isn't an adjective, it's a verb" ????

I think we have been using both as nouns, though the word 'commonplace' has certainly been used as a verb in the past and may well be used in that way in some work on ballads.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 May 19 - 07:57 AM

Doesn't learning about ballads are doomed to end in acrimony say everything that needs to be said about the state of the folk scene in \britain Dave ?

No. It tells us that people are no longer prepared to accept received wisdom.

Pseudonymous. No need to apologise. It takes two to tango!

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 22 May 19 - 08:01 AM

Toelken: just looked at the intro on Amazon. He references Lakoff and Johnson which I have as it happens. It interested me to note he refers to 'the ballad wars', which seems to me to prove a point I made above that it is invalid to suggest that over 100 years a fund of 'knowledge' about folk songs was built up when in fact over 100 years there have been a number of lively debates. Then it moves on to the 'oral formulaic' theory about which I have heard a little in a different context (ie stuff about the Ancient Greeks). Another source of discussion and divergent opinions it seems!


Looks like inter-library loans will be busy!

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 19 - 08:19 AM

On 'milk-white' horses, the OED has something suggesting the use of milk-white steeds in 1339. Source for this given as Joseph Ritson's 19th century study of metrical romances. So Steve seems dead on with his idea of romances as a possible source of examples.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 22 May 19 - 11:51 AM

Steve - thanks for the info on the Cramer booklet.

Mick

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 May 19 - 04:12 PM

Do we need a definition of 'troll' then?:)

Is 'flamer' a contraction of 'inflamer'? I thought it was a local dialect word in our part of Yorkshire, as applied to naughty children 'You little flamer! I'll skelp yer if I get hold of yer!

I'll get me coat!

---

Approximately 1/3 of this thread was removed to take out the off-topic squabbling. If you'll stop responding to trolling and simply ignore off-topic posts you'll be doing us all a favor. Thanks.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 22 May 19 - 04:20 PM

By the way, I have found some background information on Bronson and his methodology via JSTOR. It would appear that he used some kind of statistical techniques to try to identify tune families - though I have not yet been able to access the full article, being up to the limit on my monthly allowance. I suppose that today he might have used computer techniques to do this.

For anybody interested the reference is

Some Observations about Melodic Variation in British-American Folk Tunes
Bertrand Harris Bronson
Journal of the American Musicological Society
Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer, 1950), pp. 120-134

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 May 19 - 04:28 PM

Regarding romances, whilst it's relatively quiet here I am leafing through the Percy Folio Manuscripts looking for interesting bits. The scholarship of the editors, Hales and Furnivall, is astounding. I'm not reading every word of every romance as I'm looking for other things and some are 40 pages long, but whilst I'm coming across commonplace phrases and lines I'm not seeing much in the way of whole stanzas. Although they are very different in some ways to the ballads many of them are written in ballad metres. What is curious then is that almost no ballads as we know them have any evidence of existence prior to c1450. Some of their stories certainly were in existence, but not in ballad form. Off the top of my head the only romance I can call to mind that was rewritten as a ballad was Hind Horn but that also still exists in story form anyway. I'm sure there were others.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 May 19 - 04:31 PM

Incidentally I am aware that there was once a school of thought that the ballads preceded the romances and evolved into the romances. However, as there is no evidence whatsoever for this I certainly wouldn't subscribe to it.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 22 May 19 - 05:03 PM

(brava / bravo / bravi tutti) thanks for saving the discussion

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 22 May 19 - 05:25 PM

I suppose, then, that one could suggest that the romances, which came to be written in prose, were fore-runners of the novel, which is still called 'roman' in French, rather than the ballad. Various genres of novel, including the gothic stuff started by Walpole. Some stuff from romance ended up in Shakespeare, as we know, and other plays.

I must say I've only sketchy knowledge of medieval 'literature', though I do have a book of 'early medieval lyrics' in which there isn't much if anything that looks like a ballad, though the editor says that some of the material has a folk feel (but doesn't define what he means by this!).

I still feel that Lord Lovel has a sense of the 'romance' eg the man dying for love (literally, as opposed to being love-sick), his being a Lord riding a white horse. The rose imagery too perhaps. But this is a personal response of course. I could not claim and didn't mean to claim for it a direct link to any particular romance.

Subject: RE: If you do like ballads...
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 22 May 19 - 05:40 PM

On the other hand, the tragic element doesn't seem typical of the romance, though tragedies were written eg by Chaucer, these being of the 'wheel of fortune' i.e. just happy life turned into bad luck type, rather than the tragic flaw type etc.