ABSTRACT
Catherine Charlwood’s chapter draws a complex picture of the ballad form as characterised by narrative, musicality, and memory, all three to some extent a feature of its links to orality. Defining various meanings of the term ‘ballad’ and its derivatives, the chapter is based on a loose general definition of the term, followed by an in-depth look at various types of ballads, from popular to broadside, before considering how our understanding of the ballad form can best inform our thinking about poetic forms in general.
