Ballad Questions- New Book
1. Barbara Allen wanted to die because her love died for her.
2. Robin Hood switched clothing with an old man so that no one would recognize him, then went to the sheriff and said that he had Robin Hood’s horn. When the sheriff dared him to blow the horn, he did it quite loudly and all of Robin Hood’s men came and helped Robin. They then took the sheriff and hung him on the gallows and released the three men.
3. They argue about who has to get up and close the door from the wind.
4. a. Barbara Allan keeps her distance from him, but he is always willing to see her.
b. He says that he is dying for Barbara Allan.
c. She loved him too, and since he died for her, she would die for him as well.
5. The three squires were too poor to get meat any other way, and Robin Hood knew that, so he helped them get away since they really had no other option.
6. There is use of a Scottish dialect in the ballad, which makes the ballad a little more difficult to understand. However, we are able to understand that it is winter, with “the wind so cold” (5), and that the location is somewhere in Europe seeing as how they have a penchant for “puddings” (25).
7. “Barbara Allan”
a. the ballad contained tragic subject matter, because it was about a man dying for a woman’s love, and she was sad enough that she wanted to die for him too.
b. it has a simple plot because it doesn't give much background story on them but for the most crucial details, and is simply the telling of the death of Sir John Graeme and Barbara Allan’s grief.
c. the dialogue in the ballad makes it sound like they have a Scottish dialect, and they are also very informal with each other when they talk.
d. there is not much repetition in the ballad, not with certain lines or stanzas, only the repeated use of the name “Barbara Allan”
e. there was the use of rhyming lines in the ballad; every other line was rhyming, so it fit the ABCB pattern
8. In each ballad, I was able to paraphrase each stanza as directed in page 213, especially in “Robin Hood and the Three Squires”. Also, as I was reading I used the notes to help understand what was going on in the ballad, especially in “Get Up and Bar the Door.”
9. There was a lot of injustice going on (Robin Hood), and they had little medical science to help them survive were they to ever get sick (Barbara Allan), and their houses were poorly insulated and defended, seeing as how all they had was a wooden door to protect them (Get Up and Bar the Door).
Old Book Questions
1. The poem doesn't tell you who his true love is, it also does not tell you why the mother is worried. The poem fails to tell you weather he was actually poisoned or not even though you know that he is just love sick.
2. It’s a surprising change from the repetition of the previous stanzas and makes the ballad sound sad in the end, and it makes us wonder how he came to be lovesick when he came back from having dinner with his love. This variation comes as a surprise as reader would have anticipated the next line to be same as the ones before but this in a way lets the reader know the end of ballad.
3. In “Lord Randall” the climax is reached when the speaker breaks the repetition and says that he he was poisoned and sick at heart. In “Edward, Edward” the climax is reached when Edward admits that he killed his father, and starts to talk about what he would do for punishment for his sins.
4. the last stanza of “Edward, Edward” indicates how Edward wants his mother to suffer for some unspecified reasons, so he says that the mother will bear the curse of hell from him.
5. It was such a serious and potentially dangerous setting that the game the goodwife and goodman were playing became comically ignorant of the two men that were trying to hurt them.
6. The song Save Him by Justin Nozuka deals with harsh realities that surprise the listener in the climax. It has little rhyming just like the ballad Get up and Bar the door and Edward, Edward.
7. Ballads are defined as folklore usually about tragedies and somewhat comedic. Throughout all these ballads there is an indication of a tragedy. In the very first ballad Lord Randall is poisoned while in the second Ballad Edward killed his father while also cursed his mother. The third one represents comedy between husband and a wife. “Frankie and Johnny” represents doomed love story and a tragedy about it. All these ballads show tragedies and in no way they glorify violence but instead represent tragedies and also show comedy in some of them. The issue between the media today and the ballads is totally different as Ballads are mostly about tragedies and comedy while media today focus completely on sensationalism and in order to do that they focus mainly on violence.