REVIEW for TEST 8th April 2017

The Literature questions on your next test will be based on:

1) The Norman conquest and King William I
2) Reign of Henry II and the most important aspects of his time
3) The Magna Carta and the first Parliament
4) The Black Death
5) Abstract made concrete
6) Medival Drama

19 - THE ENGLISH BALLAD

Read about the history of the ballad, watch video and for a class project prepare a video on the ballad "Lord Randall"

THE MEDIEVAL BALLAD:  "Lord Randall"

Watch video and then prepare a video on "Lord Randall":

The medieval ballad

The ballad is composed of four-line stanzas. There is repetition, no moral aim, rapid flashes, mixture of dialogue and narration with real and supernatural characters. The main themes are: the supernatural, war, love and family tragedies.

The most famous medieval ballad is by an anonymous author called “Edward”. It talks about a man who kills his father and wants to exile to sea. His mother asks him what he will do with his property and he answers her with a curse sending her to hell.

Medieval ballads were orally transmitted through the ages. They are short, anonymous narrative poems or songs set to music and they would change from country to country. They are simple in form and language, made up of quatrains with a repeated refrain in order to be easily remembered.

Ballads usually tell a particular story of some tragic event (a murder or death) and includes supernatural elements. Some are based on well-known legendary figures (like Robin Hood) or real historical events.

Summary - Lord Randal - Anonymous

Lord Randal is an anonymous medieval ballad based on Scottish traditions and it began to be diffused in the Middle Ages. It is said to have analogues in German and Italian. It was set to music because it was meant to be sung rather than read and also to increase its poetic quality. It is simple in language and structure.

It is made up of 10 quatrains with a rhyme scheme abab. It is an equally-divided, direct question-and-answer dialogue between a mother and her son. The setting is Lord Randal’s home. It is divided into two parts.

The first part contains the first 5 stanzas and it is about a mother who asks her son where he has been and what he has done. He answers that he has been in the greenwood to meet his true-love. Through this first part, there is the repeated refrain in the last part of the first three lines and the whole fourth line.

In the second part, there is a turning point in the 6^th stanza, in which the mother discovers that her son has been poisoned by his true-love. The second part is a sort of will in which the mother asks her son what he will leave to her, his sister, his brother and his true-love. He answers he will leave his mother 24 cattle; he will leave his sister silver and gold; he will leave his brother his lands; and finally, he will leave his true-love hell and fire. In this part, there is the repeated refrain in the last part of the first three lines and the whole fourth line.

 The most important aspect is not the death of Lord Randal, but his tragic story with the magical and mysterious atmosphere surrounding his pending death.