The Differences Between Ballads and Sonnets

The first records of written poetry show that people may have started to write down poetry in the cradle of civilization, Sumeria. Gilgamesh is the first example of written epic poetry. Generally, epic poems like Gilgamesh were recited and memorized as a part of the oral tradition. According to scholars, the first recorded poet Enheduanna’s poems were also a part of the oral tradition. However, her poetry was recited in religious ceremonies calling for assistance from goddesses, not specifically for entertainment purposes. People arranged public performances and religious ceremonies in which the poems would get chanted out to the audience. Since then, poetry has changed and developed many under titles; nevertheless, poetry has not changed its foundation, it is still meant to be recited, listened to. Many of the two under titles of poetry are; the ballad and the sonnet. Ballads and sonnets were popular forms of poetry in the medieval period until the 19th century and in the Renaissance era, respectively. They may be subgenres of poetry; however, the ballad and the sonnet have many differences.

There are many characteristics of a traditional ballad. First of all, being a narrative poem, a ballad is designed to be sung, is to tell a story, and used to be transmitted orally. A ballad generally focuses on actions rather than the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of characters as opposed to lyrical poems. The subjects that are typical in a ballad are; death, murder, hauntings, and dubious love affairs. Secondly, the action passes on through dialogue and who is speaking is left to be assumed from the context. Thirdly, the language of a ballad is not “poetic” nor “grand”, they mostly tell their stories in everyday speech because the traditional ballads were written for “ordinary” audiences. Lastly, the narrators of a ballad generally narrate their stories in third person objective and not in first person, unless they are speaking as a character. They mainly do not comment or react to the emotional content of their ballads.

The form of a ballad is different than a sonnet; ballads are narrative poems mainly “written in ballad stanzas or quatrains (four-line stanzas) of alternating lines of iambic (an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable) tetrameter (eight syllables) and iambic trimeter (six syllables), known as ballad meter. Usually, only the second and fourth lines of a quatrain are rhymed (in the scheme a, b, c, b), which has been taken to suggest that, originally, ballads consisted of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables”. (1) To illustrate better, here is a quatrain from the ballad called Lord Randall:

Oh where ha'e you been, Lord Randall my son?

Oh where ha'e you been, my handsome young man?

I've been to the wild wood: mother, make my bed soon,

For I'm weary wi' hunting and I fain would lie down. 

The explained characteristics of a ballad can be seen in this verse from Lord Randall, it tells a story, there is a dialogue between Lord Randall and his mother, and the narrator is speaking in third person objective. But, there is specific characteristics in Lord Randall that it was not mentioned earlier. The ballad is formulated by “incremental repetition” and “refrains”. The formula in this ballad is created by the questions of Lord Randall’s mother and followed by his response, which is always enclosed by Lord Randall’s frame. Every time his mother asks the questions and every time he answers, the formula slightly changes. As they go on with this incremental repetition, the reader learns more about the story and at the end, what is truly happening to Lord Randall is revealed.

As it is said earlier, the ballad form differs from the modern poems because it comes from oral tradition. The ballads are written in more flexible rhythms so that they can be more suitable for songs. Thus, the ballad cannot be scanned as the same way as the other poetic genres because a villanelle or a sonnet are not to be sung. So, the ballad Lord Randall’s meter form is less definite than other poetic genres’ poems. The one rule in Lord Randall’s meter form is that the ballad is written in tetrameter which means that one line in the ballad consists of four stressed syllables. However, the number of syllables per line is not consistent and the pattern to the stresses and unstresses in each line is unclear. The rhyme scheme in Lord Randall is called “slant rhymes” which means that the words look similar but do not sound similar. For example, Lord Randall’s mother’s lines finishes off with “son” and “man”. These words are a matched pair and they do not rhyme.

On the other hand, unlike ballads, sonnets are lyrical poems. The word sonnet derives from the Italian word “sonetto”, meaning “little song”. In Elizabethan England and Renaissance Italy, the sonnet became a popular poetic form. A sonnet is different than a ballad in many ways; one of them is that a sonnet is mainly about the feelings and thoughts of the characters. It can be seen that the majority of poets that wrote sonnets are expressing their love for a person or nature. The poets’ only attention is not only "love", but they also manifest about time, aging, lust, infidelity, and many other topics.

Different styles of sonnets are derived in different languages, with differentiations in metrical pattern and rhyme scheme. However, one similarity in all sonnet types is that they “have a two-part thematic structure, containing a problem and solution, question and answer, or proposition and reinterpretation within their 14 lines and a volta, or turn, between the two parts.” (2) Although sonnets share one similarity, they are categorized in themselves and two of the major form of sonnets are Petrarchan or Italian sonnet, and Shakespearean sonnet. 

The Petrarchan sonnet looks upon itself characteristically in two parts. “The first eight lines, the octave, state a problem, ask a question or express an emotional tension. The last six lines, the sestet, resolve the problem, answer the question, or relieve the tension. The octave is rhymed abbaabba. The rhyme scheme of the sestet varies; it may be cdecde, cdccdc, or cdedce". (3) Sir Thomas Wyatt was one of the first poets who introduced the Petrarchan sonnet to England. Here is an example of an Italian sonnet by Sir Thomas Wyatt, Whoso List to Hunt:

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

This poem by Wyatt is an imitation of Petrarch sonnets. The rhyme scheme is abbaabbacddcee and the octave is followed by a sestet. 

The Elizabethans had to create iambic pentameter to adapt Italian form to English because English is less rich in rhymes. Thus; the Shakespearean sonnet was created. “The variation of the sonnet form that Shakespeare used—comprised of three quatrains and a concluding couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg—is called the English or Shakespearean sonnet form, although others had used it before him. This different sonnet structure allows for more space to be devoted to the build-up of a subject or problem than the Italian/Petrarchan form, and is followed by just two lines to conclude or resolve the poem in a rhyming couplet.” (4) The Elizabethan era writers did not only praise Petrarch, but they also criticized the sonnet tradition, because in a traditional sonnet, there is always a man chasing after the flawless, beautiful woman who is depicted as a goddess. William Shakespeare was one of the rebels of the traditional sonnet and he wrote Sonnet 130 to criticize it.

To conclude, the poem has developed highly in years and many poetic forms were and still being created. Two of them are the ballad and the sonnet. Even though they are subgenres of the poem, they have many differences. They have different characteristics in context, form, and structure. The ballad is less serious than the sonnet, it is there to tell a story and composed to be sung. However, the sonnet is more complex than the ballad and it is there to express humanly feelings and thoughts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.     D. Head and I. Ousby, The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 66.

2.     Jamieson, Lee. “What Is a Sonnet?” ThoughtCo, 2020, www.thoughtco.com/what-is-a-sonnet-2985266.

3.    Encyclopaedia Britannica, The Editors. “Sonnet.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 2019, www.britannica.com/art/sonnet.

4.    Foundation, Poetry. “Shakespearean Sonnet.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation, 2019, www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/shakespearean-sonnet.