Ballade Poem: Definition and Examples of the Poetic Form

A ballade poem is a verse form consisting of three main stanzas and one concluding stanza called an envoi, each of which culminates in a repeated last line (referred to as the refrain line). The first three stanzas are eight-line stanzas, while the envoi is four lines. Some people also refer to the final envoi stanza as a quatrain.

The concluding word in each line dictates the rhyme scheme of a ballade. For example, when you depict the rhymes as either A, B, or C, you can describe a ballade’s rhyme scheme as following a pattern of: ABABBCBC / ABABBCBC / ABABBCBC / BCBC. No specific poetic meter—like the iambic pentameter of a Shakespearean sonnet—is explicitly required for this poetic form.

The poetic form of a ballade generally combines narrative storytelling with conventional prosody (the rhymed and rhythmic approach of poetry versus prose) to emphasize the crafting of tales as well as turns of phrase.

The French word “ballade”—originally spelled as “balade” in Old French and Middle English—generally appears as “ballad” in English-language dictionaries. It originally meant either a narrative poem consisting of three main stanzas plus an envoi or the music that accompanies this sort of poem when recited.

Over time, ballade came to also mean a romantic musical form, such as a slow love song (also called a ballad) or an idyllic instrumental composition. This may in part be due to the romantic musical compositions and nocturnes of nineteenth century composers like Johannes Brahms, Claude Debussy, Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Gabriel Fauré, and others. Frédéric Chopin’s “Ballade No. 1 in G Minor”—an expressive, one-movement piece for piano—is just one example of how the word “ballade” came to define emphatic, romantic music in addition to literary works.

Ballade poems date back to the medieval period. French poets and musicians of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, like Guillaume de Machaut and François Villon, began to experiment with the stylistic constraints of the ballade in contrast with other poetic “formes fixes”—or fixed forms—of the era, like the rondeau and sestina. Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, also routinely wrote ballades of his own.

The poetic form picked up steam again in the nineteenth century as poets like Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Algernon Charles Swinburne, G.K. Chesterton, and others revived the style. While the old ballades of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance occasionally ventured into frivolity, these later poems were more often an explicit exercise in pairing the formal, ode-like quality of the style itself with off-kilter, unorthodox, or outright comical subject matter.

From its early days, the ballade’s formal constraints have served more as guidelines than as strict rules. Here are three examples of variations on this poetic form:

1. 1. Double-refrain ballade: There’s an extra refrain—or repeating line—included in this type of ballade. Both the fourth and eighth lines of the main stanzas are repetitions, instead of just the very last line.
2. 2. Ballade supreme: This type of ballade has the same number of stanzas, but each of the three main stanzas is 10 lines rather than eight, and the last stanza is five lines instead of four. The rhyme scheme changes due to the fact that the final five lines of each stanza (and the entire envoi, also known as the concluding stanza) follow the pattern CCDCD. When you put it all together, the rhyme scheme for a main stanza can be depicted as ABABBCCDCD.
3. 3. Chant royal: A chant royal ballade is even longer and more complex than a ballade supreme. There are five 11-line stanzas and a five-line envoi, and no rhymes appears more than twice.

Here are four well-known ballades by established poets:

1. 1. “Ballade of the Book-Worm”: This Andrew Lang poem recounts the author’s love for the tales of his youth and the books containing them.
2. 2. “Ballade of Unsuccessful Men”: Hillaire Belloc wrote many amusing takes on the ballade in the nineteenth century. This one turns its title on its head by describing the lives of some of history’s greatest figures, only to remind the reader they met death the same as anyone else.
3. 3. “Ballade des Pendus”: François Villon’s early entry into this poetic style is worth attention for more than just its historical importance. Translated to mean “Ballad of the Hanged,” this is a poignant and stirring account of Villon’s thoughts before his own execution.

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