The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #139895 Message #3213529
Posted By: MGM·Lion
27-Aug-11 - 01:27 PM
Thread Name: Ballad metre
Subject: RE: Ballad metre
It's the manner & techniques of the story-telling [narrative, incremental repetition, much use of dialogue in advancing the story, &c] which define the ballad as a genre, at least as much as the metre or the verse-pattern. Many other songs & poems share the metre adduced by Paul above [Onward Xtn Soldiers; Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus; Jack & Jill; Old Mother Hubbard ...] without being, in anyone's concept, ballads. And a fair number of the ballads in Child/Bronson will probably be found to vary from this verse-pattern considerably.
~M~