Songs, Ballads, and Broadsides

Una McIlvenna*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Ballads were a ubiquitous product of seventeenth-century British popular culture. Cheaply printed, broadside ballads were hawked by street singers, who were associated with criminality. Topics varied from natural disasters to politics, from religious moralising to bawdry, making them an excellent tool for understanding seventeenth-century British society. White-letter ballads were political and usually high-brow, while black-letter ballads, which used simple language, could be on any topic. Set to familiar tunes, the songs were easy to learn and sing. The melodies were consciously chosen by composers because of their emotional and social connotations which added extra meaning to the new lyrics. The melody also dictated their structure, providing multiple kinds of metre rather than a single ‘ballad metre’. Ballads could use a variety of narrative voices, from the first-person voice of the condemned criminal to dialogue between two singers or could use invented regional accents to mock non-English people as ‘Other’.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationThe Oxford History of Poetry in English
Subtitle of host publicationSeventeenth-Century British Poetry
EditorsLaura L. Knoppers
Place of PublicationNew York
PublisherOxford University Press
Chapter20
Pages262-272
Number of pages11
Volume5
ISBN (Electronic)9780198930259
ISBN (Print)9780198852803
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2024

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