Sensationalism in the Middle Ages

These aren’t the latest tabloid headlines. They’re the plots of medieval ballads. In the Middle Ages, just as today, some forms of popular entertainment tended toward the sensational.

Lord Randall Introducing the Poem

Slighted Woman Spurns Lover’s

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Three Dead Sons Visit Mother for Dinner

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Poetry of the People

Ballads were the poetry of the people, just as popular music is today. Ballads had subjects such as

Lord Randall Introducing the Poem

• domestic tragedy• false love• the supernatural

What modern popular songs can you think of that have these same subjects?

Poetry of the People

The ballads of the Middle Ages

Lord Randall Introducing the Poem

• were passed down orally from singer to singer

• had strong beats and repetition

• were a gift of story passed from generation to generation

Lord Randall Introducing the Poem

In this ballad, Lord Randall has just returned from the forest. He tells his mother that all he wants to do is lie down.

• Is Lord Randall simply tired from hunting?

• What happened in the forest? Was there some kind of foul play, as his mother suspects?

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Ballads are songs or songlike poems that tell stories in simple, rhythmic language.

Lord Randall Literary Focus: Ballad

Ballads usually include• sensational or tragic subject matter

• omission of details• supernatural events

• a refrain—a repeated word, line, or group of lines

Ballad singers often used certain conventions:

Lord Randall Literary Focus: Ballad

• incremental repetition—repeating a phrase or sentence, adding a new element each time, to build suspense

“O where hae ye been, Lord Randall, my son?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .“Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Randall, my son?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .“What gat ye to your dinner, Lord Randall, my son?”

Ballad singers often used certain conventions:

Lord Randall Literary Focus: Ballad

• a question-and-answer format—series of questions whose answers reveal facts of the story little by little; used to build suspense

“O where hae ye been, Lord Randall, my son?O where hae ye been, my handsome young man?”“I hae been to the wild wood; mother, make my bed

soon,For I’m weary wi’ hunting and fain wald lie down.”

Ballad singers often used certain conventions:

Lord Randall Literary Focus: Ballad

• conventional phrases—word groups understood by listeners to have a meaning beyond the literal one

• a strong, simple beat

• relatively uncomplicated verse forms

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