Bacchius
Two long syllables preceded by a short syllable in a metric foot; mostly used in ancient poetry.
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Ballad
A short narrative poem that usually represents a romantic theme, is imperonsally treated, or characterized by the simplicity of language.
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Ballad Meter
Alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming.
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Ballad Stanza
Four lines rhymed a b c d , with 8, 6, 8, 6, syllables respectfully.
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Ballad-Broadside
In the late 16th and early 17th century historical or current events were written in a ballad in doggerel on a single piece of paper and included the name of a tune to which they were to be sung. These ballads sometimes conveyed moral or religious ideas or propaganda and were sold for a penny or two on street corners in England.
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Ballads-Child
Ballads contained in Francis J. Child’s work, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, ( 1882-1898 ). Authentic creations of illiterate or semiliterate people whom preserved the ballads orally.
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Ballad-Folk
A folk ballad is usually composed to be sung and was often altered as it was repeated from generation to generation.
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Ballade
1. A poem composed of three stanzas and an envoy. The last line of the opening stanza is used as a refrain. The same rhymes, strictly limited in number, reoccur throughout the ballade.
2. A fixed form with three; seven or eight-line stanzas, with no more than three recurrent rhymes. An identical refrain follows each stanza and a closing envoi repeats the rhymes of the last four lines of the stanza. Often used in French poetry.
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Ballade-Double
Six octaves, or ten-line stanzas, built on three and four rhymes respectively with refrain, but rarely the envoy.
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Bard
A person whose gifts and long training fitted him to compose and recite poems.
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Blank Verse
Simply defined as unryhmed verse or unrhymed iambic pentameter.
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Bouts-Rimes
A game in which on of the players offers a set of rhyme-words to the other players. The players would then compete in producing an acceptable poem built on the given rhymes using them in their original order. .
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Bucolic
A poem dealing with a pastoral subject.
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Burden
Often repeated in the refrain, it is the central topic or idea.
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Burlesque
The exaggeration, sometimes grotesquely, of a minor subject intended to ridicule.
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