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BALLADE

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Originally appearing in Volume V03, Page 264 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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BALLADE , the technical name of a complicated and fixed See also:

form of See also:verse, arranged on a precise See also:system, and having nothing in See also:common with the word ballad, except its derivation from the same See also:Low Latin verb, ballare, to See also:dance. In the 14th and .15th centuries it was spelt balade. In its See also:regular conditions a ballade consists of three stanzas and an envoi; there is a refrain which is repeated at the See also:close of each See also:stanza and of the envoi. The entire poem should contain but three or four rhymes, as the See also:case may be, and these must be reproduced with exactitude in each See also:section. These rules were laid down by See also:Henri de Croi, whose L'See also:Art et See also:science de rhetorique was first printed in 1493, and he added that if the refrain consists of eight syllables, the ballade must be written in huitains (eight-See also:line stanzas), if of ten syllables in dizains (ten-line), and so on. The form can best be studied in an example, and we quote, as absolutely faultless in See also:execution, the famous " Ballade aux Enfants Perdus," composed by See also:Theodore de See also:Banville in 1861: " le See also:sais bien que Cythere est en deuil! Que son jardin, soufflete See also:par See also:Forage, O See also:mes amis, n'est plus qu'un sombre ecueil Agonisant sous le soleil sauvage. La solitude habite son rivage. Qu'importe! allons vers See also:les pays fictifs! Cherchons la plage oil nos desirs oisifs S'abreuveront dans le sacre mystere Fait pour un chceur d'esprits contemplatifs:. Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythere. " La grande mer sera notre cercueil ; Nous servirons de proie au noir naufrage, Le See also:feu du ciel punira notre orgueil Et 1'See also:aiguillon nous garde son See also:outrage.

Qu'importe! allons vers le clair paysage! Malgre la mer jalouse et les recifs, Venez, portons comme See also:

des fugitifs, See also:Loin de ce monde au souffle deletere. Nous dont les cceurs sont des ramiers plaintifs, Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythere. " Des serpents gris se trainent sur le seuil Oa souriait Cypris, la chere See also:image Aux tresses d'or, la See also:vierge au doux accueil! Mais les Amours sur le plus haut cordage Nous chantent 1'hymne adore du voyage. Heros caches dans See also:ces See also:corps maladifs, Fuyons, partons sur nos legers esquifs, Vers le divin See also:bocage oil la panthere Pleure d'amour sous les rosiers lascifs: Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythere. Envoi. Rassasions d'azur nos yeux pensifs! Oiseaux chanteurs, clans la brise expansifs, Ne souillons pas nos ailes sur la terre. Volons, charmes, vers les dieux primitifs! Embarquons-nous pour la belle Cythere." This is the type of the ballade in its most elaborate and highly-finished form, which it cannot be said to have reached until the 14th See also:century. It arose from the See also:canzone de ballo of the Italians, but it is in Provencal literature that the ballade first takes a See also:modern form.

It was in See also:

France, however, and not until the reign of See also:Charles V., that the ballade as we understand it began to flourish; instantly it became popular, and in a few years the out-put of these poems was incalculable. See also:Machault, See also:Froissart, Eustache See also:Deschamps and Christine de See also:Pisan were among the poets who cultivated the ballade most abundantly. Later, those . See also:Martial (iv. 19. 6) calls the harpastum, pulverulentum, implying that it involves a considerable amount of exertion.of Alain See also:Chartier and Henri Baude were famous, while the form was chosen by See also:Francois See also:Villon for some of the most admirable and extraordinary poems which the See also:middle ages have handed down to us. Somewhat later, See also:Clement See also:Marot composed ballades of See also:great precision of form, and the See also:fashion culminated in the 17th century with those of Madame See also:Deshoulieres, See also:Sarrazin, Voiture and La See also:Fontaine. Attacked by See also:Moliere, and by Boileau, who wrote " La ballade asservie a ses vieilles maximes, Souvent doit tout son lustre au caprice des rimes," the ballade went entirely out of fashion for two See also:hundred years, when it was resuscitated in the middle of the 19th century by Theodore de Banville, who published in 1873 a See also:volume of Trentesix ballades joyeuses, which has found many imitators. The ballade, a typically See also:French form, has been extensively employed in no other See also:language, except in See also:English. In the 15th and 16th centuries many ballades were written, with more or less close See also:attention to the French rules, by the leading English poets, and in particular by See also:Chaucer, by See also:Gower (whose surviving ballades, however, are all in French) and by See also:Lydgate. An example from Chaucer will show that the type of See also:strophe and See also:rhyme arrangement was in See also:medieval English: " Madame, ye been of all beauty See also:shrine As far as circled is the mappemound; For, as the crystal, glorious ye shine, And like See also:ruby been your cheekes See also:round. Therewith ye been so merry and so jocund That at a revel when that I see you dance, It is an oinement unto my See also:wound, Though ye to me ne do no daliance.

" For though I weep of teares fulla tine [cask], Yet may that woe my hearte not confound; Your seemly See also:

voice, that ye so small out-twine, Maketh my thought in joy and See also:bliss abound. So courteously I go, with love See also:bound, That to myself I say, in my See also:penance, Suficeth me to love you, Rosamound, Though ye to me ne do no daliance. " Was never See also:pike wallowed in galantine, As I in love am wallowed and y-wound ; For which full oft I of myself divine That I am true Tristram the second. My love may not refrayed [cooled down] be nor afound I See also:burn ay in an amorous pleasance. [foundered] ; Do what you See also:list, I will your See also:thrall be found, Though ye to me ne do no daliance." The See also:absence of an envoi will be noticed in Chaucer's, as in most of the medieval English ballades. This points to a relation with the earliest French form, in its imperfect See also:condition, rather than with that which afterwards became accepted. But a ballade without an envoi lacks that section whose See also:function is to tie together the See also:rest, and See also:complete the whole as a See also:work of art. After the 16th century See also:original ballades were no more written in English until the latter See also:part of the 19th, when they were re-introduced, almost simultaneously, by Algernon Charles See also:Swinburne, See also:Austin See also:Dobson, See also:Andrew See also:Lang, See also:Edmund See also:Gosse and W.E.See also:Henley; but D. G. See also:Rossetti's popular See also:translation of Villon's "Ballade of See also:Fair Ladies " may almost be considered an original poem, especially as it entirely disregards the metrical rules of the ballades. Mr. Dobson's " The Prodigals " (1876) was one of the earliest examples of a correct English specimen.

In 188o Mr Lang published a volume of Ballades in See also:

Blue See also:China, which found innumerable imitators. The modern English ballades have been, as a See also:rule, closely modelled on the lines laid down in the 15th century by Henri de Croi. With the exception of the See also:sonnet, the ballade is the noblest of the artificial forms of verse cultivated in English literature. It lends itself equally well to pathos and to mockery, and in the hands of a competent poet produces an effect which is See also:rich in See also:melody without seeming fantastic or artificial. (E.

End of Article: BALLADE

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