# Forms of the Folk Ballad

So far we have been discussing the development of the ballad, those factors which influenced its development, about its performers, and the nameless peasant community which polished and perfected the ballad. We have considered the link between the ballad and the elements of fairy stories, short stories, of belief and superstition and the historical, epic manner of performance, the principle of dramatic construction both in the epic and dance song versions of ballads. In the course of outlining this genre, we have also had the opportunity to consider the “message” of the Hungarian folk ballads through their symbols and themes, as well as through their manner of depiction.

During this historical review, it has, hopefully, become evident that the Hungarian folk ballad incessantly gave voice, from its earliest periods, to the feelings and world of ideas of the entire nation, singing about the life of the hopeless, ill-fated people from the willingness to fight for their cause, to the bitter fate of the fugitive. Now, let us look at the question of the artistic form of the Hungarian folk ballad. It is evident that the folk ballad represents a literarily complex poetic world which actually fuses the essential features of every genre, and might demand the formal analysis of the complete storehouse of Hungarian folk poetry. Its complex literary nature created an immense wealth of forms: all the formative achievements and mature results of folk poetry flowed into the channel of folk ballad; we can find here the uncertain tone of early development just as much as infinitely chiselled poems of flawless cadence and full sounding melody.

First, let us make a few comments about the language and richness of poetic expression of the Hungarian folk ballads. In the middle of the 19th century, János Erdélyi had already called attention to the significance of the language in folk poetry: “In what, therefore, does the strength of folk poetry lie? It lies primarily in the language, in transparent, clear, noble performance... Therefore literary poetry is to take up the clarity of folk poetry, its brave linking of words, its idioms independent of all rules...”

At another place he pointed to the straightforward, concise forms of balladic expression, its economic use of adjectives, while the elucidation of repetition as a linguistic form carried him to the questions of {547.} versification. In the folk ballad the adjective does not have only ornamental value, but rather always appears at crucial moments of description and expression. Therefore the people use it infrequently, only at the important turns of the poem. Economy of adjectives and adverbs is not a sign of poverty but rather represents the inner strength and richness of forms that are well condensed and welded. In the poetry of the people this especially applies to ballads, where each adjective has an outstanding syntactical and poetic value. Historically, we could say that the later Hungarian ballad increasingly uses a structure of adjectives and similes, and as we approach our times, it seems as if folk poetry would permit more and more concessions. In certain older ballads, however, the accumulation of adjectives might be a sign of interference by a writer or recorder.

Verbs are used richly and in a diversified way in folk ballads. The descriptiveness and power of expression in the use of verb tense and moods, as well as the diversified and not infrequently incremental use of verbs in the Hungarian ballads would deserve a separate essay. This is in large part connected with their dramatic construction and with the folk ballad’s method of dramatic condensation. In an epic genre of such a small calibre as the ballad, dramatic conflicts, the antagonism of characters, and the expression of actions can only be achieved by the courageous and incisive use of verb forms, of which the folk ballad is a master.

All that is called to our attention by the syntax of folk poetry could be considered a special chapter on Hungarian verse syntax. The folk ballad, and indeed folk poetry in general, sets a good example to the poet by the perfect coincidence of the expressive sentence with the structure of the poem and thus with the emphatic part of the poetic message. Unification of the intellectual and expressive with the poetic and descriptive aspects of the sentence is perfectly attained here. It would be worth while analysing the dramatic dialogues and clashes from the point of view of the peculiar syntax of the verse, or the development of the ballad-type sentence according to the lyric, dramatic, or epic progress of the poem. The flexible shaping of the ballad type sentence, its tightening in dramatic ballads, its harsh explosiveness or lyric softness at other places, all this praises the wealth of folk language. Thus the ballad shows poets how they can apply the vast potential of the language for the expression of the most complicated message.

As we said above, to speak of ballad versification almost amounts to speaking about the most important questions of versification for the entirety of folk poetry. At the outset our researchers found in ballad versification the example of ancient Hungarian versifying, although attention must be called to the difference among certain ballad groups, and to the difference in the historical period of their verse forms. Some people emphasize even the geographic element of the difference: those from the Great Plain are more melodic and lyric than the ones from Transylvania, the epic character of which is more conspicuous. Those from the Great Plain have stanzas and rhymes, while those from Transylvania are often without stanza and rhyme and use only the caesura, stress, alliteration, and parallelism.

{548.} One characteristic of Hungarian folk ballad versification is alliteration, or rather the fact that the structure of word repetition often also determines the form and character of the stanza, replaces the refrain or rather develops it. We can look upon this conspicuous method of repetition in the ballad as a genuinely Hungarian rhythmic tradition. It would be a gratifying task to systematize these types of repetitions, and to examine their regularity. The character of repetition which creates a poetic atmosphere and emphasizes the importance of the message clearly manifests itself in the Hungarian folk ballad. Repetition in folk ballads is not merely an old technique, the survival of which would be understandable anyway as an aspect of oral tradition, but it is rather a poetic means of expression and exists for the sake of the message. In the innumerable shades of repetition we can see one of the most significant elements of the formation of Hungarian folk ballads.

Furthermore, in their rhythms, verse and stanza structure, these folk ballads reflect every aspect of the development and flowering of written Hungarian poetry. We can perhaps look upon rhyme technique as the least rich and polished, and we are indeed more likely to find the newer ballads among those in rhymed forms, although even this is not exclusively so. At a number of points, precisely in playful, merry ballads, rhyme technique meshes with the forms of European versifying, with forms also affecting Hungarian poets. Therefore we can state that the entire progress of Hungarian historical prosody can be found in ballads.

The problem of the dramatic structure and construction of the Hungarian ballad belongs to the questions of artistic form, in the narrow sense, of “national form”. Even if we accept the earlier observation–which, however, applies to the totality of the Hungarian ballad genre and not to individual ballads–that through historical development epic, dramatic, and lyric elements equally have become amalgamated into the ballad, the fact remains that the dramatic element had the greatest formative role in the ballad’s development. Within the body of the European ballads, the Hungarian folk ballads are dramatically constructed epic or lyric songs, with the dramatic principle taking precedence. The architectural structure of folk ballads, the confrontation and intensification of situations, the dramatic composition of the dialogues, the introduction of the characters through these dialogues almost as heroes as well as individual personalities, all testify to a high degree of poetic awareness. Indeed, the concept of creative awareness may safely be applied to those anonymous authors and subsequent re-tellers who gave these ballads their shape. Dramatic character permeates every group of folk ballads–with the exception of a number of more recent broadsheet ballads, in which the historical narrative voice still greatly dominates.

Obscure and spasmodic style is by no means necessarily dramatic in effect. Drama always develops from and seeks solutions to great conflicts, tragedies or comedies of the clash of ideologies, morals and characters. Hungarian folk ballads show a special propensity for the creation of such characters and situations through dialogue–and not infrequently, by telling the story in the first or third person. One {549.} characteristic of the thrice-repeating structure, which, by the way, is related to folk tales even in its form, is also suitable for dramatic intensification. While the thrice-repeating structure of the folk tale (three adventures, three deals with the dragon, etc.) more likely uses the methods of quantitative intensification, this intensification in the ballad is qualitative: repetition (cf. Ilona Görög, Wife of Mason Kelemen, Anna Fehér, etc.) makes the situation increasingly dramatic, it more and more exposes the worthless, bad wife, the daughter deserted by her parents and saved only by her lover, the dead man who begins to respond only to the words of his lover, etc. Increasing intensification also makes the fate of the wife of the Mason Kelemen even more ominous. Yet not only intensification, but the use of scenes antithetical to each other, the dramatic buildup of unexpected situations, also emphasize this characteristic quality of the Hungarian ballad. Most definitely, one of the greatest poetic values of the Hungarian folk ballads lies in their dramatic nature. The ballad in this sense is really a dramatic song.

The examination of melody also falls within the scope of the question of ballad form. We know that ballads always appear in the union of lyrics and melody, and today we see increasingly clearly that this union is not the only thing characterizing ballads, since a play-like dancing performance was also characteristic, and is characteristic in many places even today, including both tragic and merry themes. This intertwining of lyrics and melody does not mean that the same melody was always connected to a certain lyric. Bartók warned us that even melodies of the old-style Székely ballads are not inseparable from their lyrics, that other ballads of similar rhythm or lyric songs are sung to the same beautiful melodies. However, Bartók also notes that this separating, this teaming up with a novel text is not old in origin. Naturally, this separating and switching do not moderate but rather increase our problems in this area.

Bartók analyzed the melodic peculiarities of Hungarian folk ballads, the four-line isometric stanza construction and the largely pentatonic scale; we also know that ballads, in the course of their historical development, behaved similarly in the matter of prosody, and we could quote a series of significant parallels in the history of Hungarian folk melodies. Most distant historical perspectives and relationships to historic melodies have been increasingly discovered. We know of ballads which have been stamped by the sign of Latinate, collegiate music, by the ecclesiastic scale, and by 16th–17th century Hungarian folk music; and we identify as well one stratum of ballads with widespread, new-style melodies, which, however, have centuries-old antecedents.