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1. Q. 09
Ballad
Definition:
A ballad is a song. Think boy bands and chest-thumping emotion. Maybe a few tears.But in poetry, a
ballad is also an ancient form of storytelling. In the wayback days, common people didn't get their
stories from books—they were sung as musical poems. Because they are meant to convey information,
ballads usually have a simple rhythm and a consistent rhyme scheme. They often tell the story of
everyday heroes, and some poets, like Bob Dylan, continue to set them to music.Many (though not all)
ballads are written in a little something we like to call ballad meter (creative, we know), which
consists of alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. That means they sound a little
something like this (ahem): daDUM daDUM daDUM daDUM / daDUM daDUM daDUM. If that
sounds eerily familiar, well, it should. This meter is a classic, an old stand-by, and tons of poems,
ballads, hymns, and other songs were written in it—songs like "Amazing Grace" or "The Battle Hymn
of the Republic." In fact, you can sing ballad poems to the tune of these songs, if you really wanted to.
Check out Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I could not stop for Death" and see if you can carry the
tune. We'll look for you on YouTube.You'll find plenty of other ballads here at Shmoop. Check out
our analysis of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's thrilling "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" or John Keats's
chilling "La Belle Dame Sans Merci".
Epic
Definition:
Ah, the epic. The most exalted, fancypants of all genres, the epic is a kind of narrative poem that dates
back to ancient Greece and the classical period. Homer and other likeminded bros used the epic to tell
stories about larger-than-life heroes and their triumphs on and off the battlefield. Epics usually involve
supernatural or mythic elements like gods who like to meddle in human affairs. They are written in an
elevated style and use lots of long similes, called heroic similes. Other conventions include an
invocation to the muses and starting in medias res, a Greek phrase that means "in the middle of the
action."Homer wrote two main epics: the Iliad and the Odyssey. After him, Virgil, a Roman guy—
ahem, the Roman guy—wrote the Aeneid. Check out our analysis of epic in the Odyssey for some
ideas on how to spot one.
Allegory
Definition:
An allegory is a story with (count 'em) two levels of meaning. First, there's the surface of the story.
You know, the characters and plot and all that obvious stuff. Then there's the symbolic level, or the
deeper meaning that all the jazz on the surface represents.The symbolic meaning of an allegory can be
political or religious, historical or philosophical. Allegories are kind of like massive metaphors, but
they usually come in narrative form—that is, they're told through stories. C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the
Witch, and the Wardrobe is a famous religious allegory. The lion Aslan is a stand-in for Christ, and
the character of Edmund, who betrays Aslan, is a Judas figure. And you thought it was just a kids'
book.George Orwell's novel Animal Farm, on the other hand, is a political allegory. Though set in a
barnyard, the novel also tells the story of the rise of the Communist party in Russia between 1917 and
1943. Although on the surface the story may seem to be about a bunch of talking farm animals, the
novel also has a secondary meaning that readers in the know will piece together. The characters and
actions in the plot can be directly interpreted as a representation of political events in Russian history.
Other famous allegories include John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and William Golding's The Lord of
the Flies. Just to spice things up, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene is an allegory that takes poetic
form.