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Dictionary definition: ballad metre
- Article from:
- The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms
- Author:
Copyright© The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms 2004, originally published by Oxford University Press 2004. (Hide copyright information)
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ballad metre or
ballad stanza
,
the usual form of the folk ballad and its literary imitations, consisting of a
quatrain
in which the first and third lines have four stresses while the second and fourth have three stresses. Usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme. The rhythm is basically
iambic
, but the number of unstressed syllables in a line may vary, as in this
stanza
from the traditional ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Annet’:‘O art thou blind, Lord ...