The Ballad
Written by Oscar Wilde, Edna St Vincent Millay and Edgar Allan Poe
Narrated by Sean Barrett, Laurel Lefkow and Ghizela Rowe
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About this audiobook
Originally derived from the Medieval French the name suggests that they were to dance to and whilst widely used around Europe and other parts of the world, became characteristic of British poetry from the Middle Ages to the 19th century when it settled into our current usage of the term as a slow sentimental song.
By the 17th century the printed version of ballads, often with music and illustration, known as Broadsides or Broadsheets, circulated, probably in their millions throughout Britain and remained popular until the Victorian era when they lost prestige.
Whether they be folk, literary or lyrical, most ballads contain a self-contained, concise, plot driven story told in the third person narrative, often featuring dialogue and moving at a pace with an emotional urgency to arrive at a dramatic conclusion. The subject of ballads are limitless and they can be tragic, historical or comic.
Maybe it’s because of childhood associations or that we all enjoy a cracking good story told in rhyme but as this volume demonstrates, the ballad has endless appeal. We include favourites such as Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Edna St Vincent Millay’s The Ballad of the Harp Weaver, Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee as well as classics such as Sir Patrick Spens, the Ballad of Reading Gaol by Wilde and La Belle Dame Sans Merci by Keats. There’s many more known and lesser known in this volume celebrating this most popular and accessible poetic form.
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was a Dublin-born poet and playwright who studied at the Portora Royal School, before attending Trinity College and Magdalen College, Oxford. The son of two writers, Wilde grew up in an intellectual environment. As a young man, his poetry appeared in various periodicals including Dublin University Magazine. In 1881, he published his first book Poems, an expansive collection of his earlier works. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, was released in 1890 followed by the acclaimed plays Lady Windermere’s Fan (1893) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).
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