Types Of Poetry:

The BALLADE -- not to be confused with the ballad -- is particularly associated with French poetry of the 14th and 15tth centuries. A French verse form, the ballade is usually made up of three stanzas of seven, eight, or ten lines and a shorter final stanza (an envoi) of four or five lines. All stanzas end with the same one-line refrain.

The rhyme scheme for your typical ballade is usually ababbcbC ababbcbC ababbcbC bcbC, where the capital "C" is the repeated refrain.

Example by G. K. Chesterton (1912)

A Ballade of Theatricals

Though all the critics' canons grow—
Far seedier than the actors' own—
Although the cottage-door's too low—
Although the fairy's twenty stone—
Although, just like the telephone,
She comes by wire and not by wings,
Though all the mechanism's known—
Believe me, there are real things.

Yes, real people— even so—
Even in a theatre, truth is known,
Though the agnostic will not know,
And though the gnostic will not own,
There is a thing called skin and bone,
And many a man that struts and sings
Has been as stony-broke as stone…
Believe me, there are real things

There is an hour when all men go;
An hour when man is all alone.
When idle minstrels in a row
Went down with all the bugles blown—
When brass and hymn and drum went down,
Down in death's throat with thunderings—
Ah, though the unreal things have grown,
Believe me, there are real things.

Prince, though your hair is not your own
And half your face held on by strings,
And if you sat, you'd smash your throne—
Believe me, there are real things.

There are many variations to the ballade: the double ballade and the double-refrain ballade. The ballade supreme has ten-line stanzas rhyming ababbccdcD, with the envoi ccdcD or ccdccD. A seven-line ballade, or ballade royal, consists of four stanzas of rhyme royal *, all using the same three rhymes, all ending in a refrain, without an envoi.



* Rhyme royal is seven lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-b-c-c. It's generally constructed either as a terza rima and two couplets (a-b-a, b-b, c-c) or a quatrain and a tercet (a-b-a-b, b-c-c)

[PaintedDiary]

Wow...this seems like a very sexy and romantic type of poetry and would be great for a new creative exercise!!! Thanks for posting Ms Jacquii!!!!!!!!!!

Kimberly