The ballad is the definition of the history of the development of the genre. Presentation for a literature lesson on the topic "ballad as a literary genre"

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Just as decisively as the lyrical genres, the lyrical epic genres, in particular the ballad, a genre directly related to the historical life of the people, underwent a restructuring.

Romantics were deeply interested in folk culture and its national identity. Among the ballads, there were French folk ballads with a special stanza and rhyming system, with a dance rhythm, English Scottish and German folk historical songs. In Russian folklore, historical songs are closest to ballads, but they are devoid of fantasy and mystery.

The European folk ballad usually contains epic and lyrical beginnings. The plot of the ballad is based on a legend, an exceptional, terrible, extraordinary event, to which the characters and popular opinion express their emotional attitude.

Romantics immediately drew attention to the ballad genre. It was convenient to rely on the history that took place in the Middle Ages and reveal the psychological motives for the behavior of the characters, determined not only by the personal logic of the characters, but also by external laws independent of them. The ballad provided the poet with ample opportunity to express the inner world of the individual. In addition, in the classical genre hierarchy, the ballad was considered "medium" heat. And romanticism, like any artistic movement, strove to master not only small lyrical genres, but also medium and monumental ones. The ballad was a genre, as if specially prepared by ancient folk poetry for romanticism. With their adaptations of the folk ballad, the romantics created a literary ballad with an obligatory fantastic or mythological plot, emphasizing the dominance of higher powers or Fate over a person.

Zhukovsky has three types of ballads - “Russian” (he gives some ballads such a subtitle; among them - “Lyudmila”, “Svetlana”, “Twelve Sleeping Virgins”; following Zhukovsky, other domestic authors supplied their ballads with the same subtitles), "ancient" ("Achilles", "Cassandra", "Ivikov Cranes", "Complaints of Ceres", "Eleusinian Feast", "Triumph of the Victors"; an ancient, mythological plot - the acquisition of a literary ballad, since the folk ballad is based on a medieval legend) and "medieval" ("Castle Smalholm, or Ivanov's Evening", "The Ballad of an Old Woman ...", "Polycrates' Ring", "Knight Rollo", etc.).

All the names of the ballads are conditional and are related to the plot that develops in the ballad. The subtitle "Russian ballad" also emphasized the reworking of the medieval ballad in the national spirit. In "Russian ballads" Zhukovsky resurrects an old motif of folk historical and lyrical songs: a girl is waiting for a dear friend from the war. The plot of the separation of lovers is extraordinarily important, because folk morality lives in it, often taking on a naive-religious form. All ballads are united by a humane outlook common to the genre as a whole.

In a literary ballad, any historical or legendary legend can become a plot, including a modern one (for example, Zhukovsky's "Night review" and Lermontov's "Airship"). Historical time and historical place of action in the ballad are conditional. Such events that took place, for example, in the Middle Ages, could be timed in a literary ballad and attributed to antiquity, to Greece or Rome, to modern Russia and, in general, to a fictional, unprecedented country. In fact, all action takes place outside of history and outside of a specific space. The time and space of the ballad is an eternity living according to a constant schedule: morning, afternoon, evening, night. Everything temporary, historically transient recedes into the background. In the same way, the space of the ballad is the whole world, the whole universe, which also has its own permanent places - mountains, hills, rivers, plains, sky, forests. Again, they are not tied to any one country. The action of the ballad unfolds in full view of the entire universe, both in time and space. The man in the ballad is placed face to face with eternity, with all destiny. In such a comparison, the main role is played not by his social or material position, whether he is noble or not noble, rich or poor, but the fundamental properties and universal feelings. These include experiences of love, death, fear, hope, death, salvation. All people are dissatisfied, and from time to time a murmur is heard from their lips, everyone hopes for something, fears something, experiences fear from time to time, and everyone knows that sooner or later they will die. In most of Zhukovsky's ballads, the hero, the heroine, or both characters are dissatisfied with fate and enter into an argument with her. The man in the ballad rejects his fate, and fate, becoming even more ferocious, overtakes him and appears in an even more terrible image.

Zhukovsky began with Russian ballads. They were dominated by a tone of melancholy love, enjoyment of sadness, which then spread to ancient and medieval ballads. Gradually, the theme of love gave way to moral, civil, moral motives, sustained, however, in a lyrical key. Then, in the second half of the 1830s, Zhukovsky's ballad creativity dries up, and the poet moves on to large epic forms - poems, stories, fairy tales.

This term has such a long history that it is unlikely that it will be possible to concisely and simply answer the question of what a ballad is in literature. However, there are a few key points that should certainly come to your mind if you happen to meet something like this on the screen or in the book. Something that will help you immediately recognize the genre. So let's start with a general definition of a ballad.

What it is?

A ballad is a work written in a special poetic (sometimes text-musical form), which tells about an event with lyrical, dramatic, and later romantic elements.

Historians found the earliest ballads in the south of France (in Provence), in manuscripts of the 13th century.

What is a ballad in literature, it was easiest to understand at that time. Otherwise, it was also called a "dance" (round dance) song.

Their performers were trouvères and troubadours - itinerant singers, who were often accompanied by jugglers who performed with them and often served them. Today, quite a lot is known about the names of medieval troubadours, among them were representatives of different classes: knights, children of the poor and aristocrats.

Genre and form development

What is a classic French ballad in literature? Formally, it consisted of 28 lines (verses), had 4 stanzas: 3 of them were 8 lines each and the last stanza - the so-called "premise" - had 4 lines. The final one served as an appeal to the person to whom the entire work was dedicated.

As with many song forms, the refrain was important to the French ballad. It was contained in every stanza, including the premise. These traits helped shape the definition of the 15th-century French ballad.

"Provencal" works did not have a clear plot. In essence, it was a lyric poem about love, which was most often sung, being built according to a certain canon.

The ballad also penetrated into Italy. There she was called "ballata". The difference was that the "premise" was the beginning. However, the Italians did not particularly care about strict compliance with the canons of form and the refrain. What is a ballad in literature, they understood quite freely. "Ballata" are typical for the love lyrics of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio.

An English ballad that is neither French nor Italian. It was a lyrical-epic narrative and told about a legend or historical event. As a rule, it consisted of quatrains without strict adherence to the number of lines and stanzas.

By the 18th century, the plotless lyrical ballad as a genre finally disappears. It is replaced by a poetic story about a terrible or sad romantic event.

Ballad themes

Thematically, a French song is an essay about love in a poetic or musical-poetic form. An outstanding master in the canonical definition of a ballad and its composition is the master of medieval poets Guillaume de Machaux (XIV century, France).

Significantly expanded the theme of Francois Villon, a poet of the 15th century. The themes of his ballads are very diverse and not at all courtly. Here, judge only by their names: "The Ballad of the Hanged", "The Ballad of Opposites" ("I'm dying of thirst over the stream, I laugh through my tears and work, playing ..."), "The Ballad of Truths on the contrary", "The Ballad of Good Advice", "Old French ballad” (“Where are the apostles saints with crucifixes made of amber?”), “Ballad-prayer”, etc.

Bards singing old English and Scottish folk songs sang for the most part about the exploits and feasts of knights and various heroes - from Odin to Robin Hood and King Edward IV.

Some ballads could even be based on very real historical events. Here, for example, is the work "On the Battle of Durham." It tells about how King David of Scotland, in the absence of the English King Edward, who left to fight in France, decided to take over England. Historically, this tradition refers listeners to a specific historical battle in 1346 in which the Scots were defeated.

Western medieval song

Starting from the 17th century, poets began to actively use the ballad genre, which could not but leave an imprint on both the subject matter and the style of their writing and construction. However, as before, the song told about events of a sometimes playful, but most often dramatic and adventure nature.

Understanding what a ballad is in literature is facilitated by reading the works of the 18th century Scottish poet Robert Burns. Based on ancient legends and songs, he created many of them. For example, the ballads "John Barleycorn", "Once Lived in Aberdeen", "The Ballad of the Miller and His Wife", "Findlay" and others. Just don't look for following the French canons in them.

Ballads were written by La Fontaine, Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Thomas Campbell, Hugo, Stevenson. Later, this genre had a great influence on German romantic literature. Moreover, in Germany, the meaning of a poetic composition written “based on English folk songs” was fixed behind the word “ballad”.

In Germany, the genre came into vogue at the end of the 18th century, which helped to define it as a romantic composition. The plots were typical for loving singers.

For example, the famous ballad Lenora by Gottfried Burger is based on an old legend about a dead groom who returned from the war to his bride. He calls her to go to get married, she gets on his horse, and he brings her to the cemetery, to the open grave. This ballad, which became a model for romantics, had a great influence, in particular, on the famous Russian poet of the 19th century Vasily Zhukovsky, who not only translated it, but also freely translated it into two of his own works - “Svetlana” and “Lyudmila”.

Such poets as Alexander Pushkin, Edgar Poe, Adam Mickiewicz also turned to Lenore (the name of the heroine became a household name).

Romantics were especially attracted by the elements of myths, fairy tales in ballads, which corresponded to the romantic desire for the mysterious and enigmatic, beyond the limits of everyday life.

Ballad in Russian literature

The genre appeared not without the influence of German romanticism at the beginning of the 19th century. Already mentioned above, Zhukovsky, whom his contemporaries called the "ballade player", worked on translations of the works of G. Burger, F. Schiller, I. V. Goethe, L. Uhland and other authors.

A. Pushkin's poems "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg", "Demons", "The Drowned Man" were written in the ballad style. M. Lermontov did not pass by with the work "Airship". Y. Polonsky also has ballads: “The Sun and the Moon”, “Forest”.

However, in Russian literature, poets of the Silver Age (I. Severyanin, V. Bryusov, N. Gumilyov, V. Shershenevich) wrote a song according to the French type, when there was great interest in "exotic" poetic forms.

Read, for example, the “package” with a refrain - the last stanza from N. Gumilyov’s “Ballad”:

To you, my friend, I will give this song.

I have always believed in your footsteps

When you led, tender and punishing,

You knew everything, you knew that we

Shine the radiance of pink paradise!

During the Great Patriotic War, the so-called political ballad, which has a tragic connotation, was popular in Soviet literature. She received a clear, well-considered plot and rhythm.

See, for example, "The Ballad of the Nails" by N. Tikhonov, "The Ballad of the Boy" by A. Zharov, "The Ballad of the Order" by A. Bezymensky and others.

Conclusion

So, in order to understand what a ballad is in literature, it is necessary to understand that one of its main genre features is a plot story about an event. Not necessarily real.

The event, however, could only be outlined schematically. It served to express the main idea of ​​the work, lyrical or philosophical overtones. The number of characters is insignificant and most often minimal, for example, two. In this case, the ballad takes the form of a dialogue-roll call.

Such are the poems "Nancy and Wilsey" by Burns and "Borodino" by Lermontov. Zhukovsky's works are endowed with lyrical meaning and expression, Pushkin's "Song of the Prophetic Oleg" with philosophical meaning, and Lermontov's "Borodino" with socio-psychological meaning.

History of Russian literature of the 19th century. Part 1. 1795-1830 Skibin Sergei Mikhailovich

Genre ballad

Genre ballad

Just as decisively as the lyrical genres, the lyrical epic genres, in particular the ballad, a genre directly related to the historical life of the people, underwent a restructuring.

Romantics were deeply interested in folk culture and its national identity. Among the ballads, there were French folk ballads with a special stanza and rhyming system, with a dance rhythm, English Scottish and German folk historical songs. In Russian folklore, historical songs are closest to ballads, but they are devoid of fantasy and mystery.

The European folk ballad usually contains epic and lyrical beginnings. The plot of the ballad is based on a legend, an exceptional, terrible, extraordinary event, to which the characters and popular opinion express their emotional attitude.

Romantics immediately drew attention to the ballad genre. It was convenient to rely on the history that took place in the Middle Ages and reveal the psychological motives for the behavior of the characters, determined not only by the personal logic of the characters, but also by external laws independent of them. The ballad provided the poet with ample opportunity to express the inner world of the individual. In addition, in the classical genre hierarchy, the ballad was considered "medium" heat. And romanticism, like any artistic movement, strove to master not only small lyrical genres, but also medium and monumental ones. The ballad was a genre, as if specially prepared by ancient folk poetry for romanticism. With their adaptations of the folk ballad, the romantics created a literary ballad with an obligatory fantastic or mythological plot, emphasizing the dominance of higher powers or Fate over a person.

Zhukovsky has three types of ballads - “Russian” (he gives some ballads such a subtitle; among them - “Lyudmila”, “Svetlana”, “Twelve Sleeping Virgins”; following Zhukovsky, other domestic authors supplied their ballads with the same subtitles), "ancient" ("Achilles", "Cassandra", "Ivikov Cranes", "Complaints of Ceres", "Eleusinian Feast", "Triumph of the Victors"; an ancient, mythological plot - the acquisition of a literary ballad, since the folk ballad is based on a medieval legend) and "medieval" ("Castle Smalholm, or Ivanov's Evening", "The Ballad of an Old Woman ...", "Polycrates' Ring", "Knight Rollo", etc.).

All the names of the ballads are conditional and are related to the plot that develops in the ballad. The subtitle "Russian ballad" also emphasized the reworking of the medieval ballad in the national spirit. In "Russian ballads" Zhukovsky resurrects an old motif of folk historical and lyrical songs: a girl is waiting for a dear friend from the war. The plot of the separation of lovers is extraordinarily important, because folk morality lives in it, often taking on a naive-religious form. All ballads are united by a humane outlook common to the genre as a whole.

In a literary ballad, any historical or legendary legend can become a plot, including a modern one (for example, Zhukovsky's "Night review" and Lermontov's "Airship"). Historical time and historical place of action in the ballad are conditional. Such events that took place, for example, in the Middle Ages, could be timed in a literary ballad and attributed to antiquity, to Greece or Rome, to modern Russia and, in general, to a fictional, unprecedented country. In fact, all action takes place outside of history and outside of a specific space. The time and space of the ballad is an eternity living according to a constant schedule: morning, afternoon, evening, night. Everything temporary, historically transient recedes into the background. In the same way, the space of the ballad is the whole world, the whole universe, which also has its own permanent places - mountains, hills, rivers, plains, sky, forests. Again, they are not tied to any one country. The action of the ballad unfolds in full view of the entire universe, both in time and space. The man in the ballad is placed face to face with eternity, with all destiny. In such a comparison, the main role is played not by his social or material position, whether he is noble or not noble, rich or poor, but the fundamental properties and universal feelings. These include experiences of love, death, fear, hope, death, salvation. All people are dissatisfied, and from time to time a murmur is heard from their lips, everyone hopes for something, fears something, experiences fear from time to time, and everyone knows that sooner or later they will die. In most of Zhukovsky's ballads, the hero, the heroine, or both characters are dissatisfied with fate and enter into an argument with her. The man in the ballad rejects his fate, and fate, becoming even more ferocious, overtakes him and appears in an even more terrible image.

Zhukovsky began with Russian ballads. They were dominated by a tone of melancholy love, enjoyment of sadness, which then spread to ancient and medieval ballads. Gradually, the theme of love gave way to moral, civil, moral motives, sustained, however, in a lyrical key. Then, in the second half of the 1830s, Zhukovsky's ballad creativity dries up, and the poet moves on to large epic forms - poems, stories, fairy tales.

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Among the genres of world literature, ballads stand out, which romantic poets loved to turn to. Initially, the genre originated in the poetry of the Middle Ages, but was later rethought and acquired a new sound and meaning. We offer you to get acquainted with the key features of the ballad, which will help distinguish it from other poetic works.

Distinctive features

The creator of the literary ballad is considered to be Robert Burns, who actively turned to folk stories, but clothed them in a more correct poetic form. In his works, the features of the song itself and a fascinating story with a plot are harmoniously intertwined. What are the main features of a ballad distinguished by literary critics?

  • Author's feelings or sensations of characters are expressed brightly and expressively.
  • A plot is required, but in some cases it can be replaced by a dialogue in which there is some action.
  • An element of mystery, mysticism, something unknown is often used, this gives the text a special sound. Examples of such a construction of the text can be found in Zhukovsky (for example, "Svetlana", "Lenora" - the author's translation of the work of the same name by Burger).
  • Often the action takes place against the backdrop of a striking landscape: incredibly beautiful or fantastic.

It is equally important to note that the hallmark of the ballad as a literary genre is the combination in a single text, often small in volume, of epic and lyrical principles.

Difference from other genres

Consider how a ballad differs from similar genres, epics and fairy tales. For convenience, the material is presented in the form of a table.

Distinctive features of the ballad genre
Compare parameter Ballad Bylina Story
Authorship There are folk and literary texts There is no author, the texts belong to oral folk art There are folk and literary texts
Presentation feature Written in verse form. A ballad line was used: even and odd verses had a different number of stops Written in tonic verse, most often the number of stresses is from 2 to 4 Both prose and verse form could be used, depending on the desire of the author.
Plot The presence of the plot is required
Heroes A hero could be any person with whom an event worthy of mention happened.

A positive hero - the embodiment of courage and justice in the minds of the people - a hero or a prince. He always does his deeds for the sake of the people.

The negative hero - the embodiment of evil qualities, was often a fictional creature (The Nightingale the Robber)

Fairy tale: the heroes were kings, princes, fictional creatures, sorcerers.

About animals: there are representatives of wildlife, endowed with human qualities.

Household: ordinary people (peasants, priests, soldiers)

Scene Against the backdrop of a mysterious or beautiful landscape Be sure to clearly indicate (Kyiv-grad) The text may not mention the location
Topic An unusual event in the life of any person, not necessarily a hero. Although there is a separate layer of heroic ballads (for example, about Robin Hood) An event of all-Russian significance, with patriotic pathos, something great, a grandiose victory Absolutely any event at the behest of the narrator

Using the table, you can understand the signs of a ballad and quickly distinguish works of this genre from any others.

Related videos

Texts by Zhukovsky

This romantic poet was so fond of the genre in question that he was jokingly nicknamed the "ballade". His pen belongs to a huge number of translations and his own texts, which are still interesting to the reader due to their uncomplicated style and fascinating plot. What are the main features of Zhukovsky's ballads?

  • In many tests, the motif of the struggle between evil and good sounds, and the sympathy of the author is on the side of the latter, but the victory often goes to negative characters (the girl Lyudmila in the work of the same name died only because she wanted to stay with her lover forever).
  • The presence of otherworldly power, a mystical component (fortune-telling, ghosts, fantastic creatures - all this makes the texts interesting for the modern reader).
  • A large number of dialogues that make the perception of the text even easier.
  • A special role is played by the description of nature, sometimes the landscape becomes a kind of character.

A sign of love-themed ballads is the deep penetration and expression in the poetic text of the finest shades of feelings.

Here is an example from Svetlana:

How can I, girlfriends, sing?

Dear friend far away;

I am destined to die

In lonely sadness.

The year has flown by - there is no news;

He does not write to me;

Oh! and they only have a red light,

They only breathe in the heart ...

Will you not remember me?

Where, which side are you?

Where is your abode?

I pray and shed tears!

Assuage my sadness

Comforting angel.

The text conveys all the experiences of Svetlana, her longing, doubts and the hope that her beloved will still return to her.

"Forest King"

Let us consider the features of a ballad in Zhukovsky's The Forest Tsar, a short work built in the form of a dialogue. What features make it possible to attribute the text to ballads?

  • The presence of a plot that has a certain dynamics.
  • Big role of dialogues.
  • Expression of feelings: reading a ballad, one begins to experience the horror that a child and his father feel from the presence of the Forest King.
  • The mystical component is the king himself, the death of a baby.

Finally, despite the fact that the work is complete in meaning, it retains an element of mystery. Such signs of a ballad can be found in Zhukovsky's The Forest Tsar.

The ballad is an amazing genre that has now undeservedly lost its popularity. These poetic texts allow both to tell about an unusual event and to express one's attitude towards the heroes of the story.