Before Reading

Lord Randall Anonymous Ballad

Ballad / Balada Poem by Gabriela Mistral

Midwinter Blues

Video link at thinkcentral.com

Poem by Langston Hughes VIDEO TRAILER

KEYWORD: HML10-816

When does poetry SING? RL 4 Analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning. RL 5 Analyze an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text. RL 10 Read and comprehend poems.

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Have you ever found yourself singing lines from a song you’d forgotten you knew? As you’ll see in this lesson, poems based on musical forms can be as catchy as song lyrics. QUICKWRITE With a small group, write out the lyrics of a wellknown song. Discuss the patterns you notice in the song, such as repetition and rhyme. Then, write a brief response to this question: What qualities make a poem “songlike”?

Meet the Authors poetic form: ballad The earliest ballads were stories told in song, using the voice and language of everyday people. They were composed orally, and singers often added or changed details to make the songs meaningful for their audience. These early ballads, typical of the medieval period, are known as folk ballads. Like a work of fiction, a ballad has characters, setting, and dialogue. Like a song, it uses repetition and has regular rhyme and meter. A traditional ballad—such as “Lord Randall,” the written version of an older folk ballad—has these characteristics: • consists of four-line stanzas with a simple rhyme scheme • narrates a single tragic incident through dialogue A ballad’s rhyme scheme may be very loose or seem inconsistent. A loose rhyme scheme gave the singer more freedom to improvise lyrics. And, because pronunciations change over time, words that once rhymed may no longer sound alike. As you read “Ballad” and “Midwinter Blues,” consider how these poems expand the traditional ballad form.

reading skill: understand dialect People who inhabit a particular region or who belong to a particular social or ethnic group may speak in a dialect, a variation of a language. Their speech may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar from the standard form of the language. Dialect often provides clues about a poem’s setting, as in “Lord Randall,” which uses an 18th-century Scottish dialect. It can also reveal information about the speaker’s identity, such as ethnicity and social class, as in “Midwinter Blues.” As you read “Lord Randall,” record on a graphic organizer in your Reader/Writer Notebook all words and phrases written in dialect, and then rewrite them in standard English. Make a similar graphic organizer for “Midwinter Blues.” Title: “Lord Randall” Speaker’s English

Standard English

What gat ye to your dinner?

What did you eat?

Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook.

Gabriela Mistral 1899–1957 Voice of the Poor Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral (mC-strälP) wrote about the lives of everyday people. She believed the poet had a duty to speak for his or her own people and age. “What the soul is to the body,” she once remarked, “so is the artist to his people.” Mistral’s themes include love and loss, faith, childbearing, and motherhood. Manyy of her finest poems grappled led with the suicide of her fiancé ancé Romelio Ureta, who o had left Mistral prior to his death. In 1945, Mistral ral became the first Latin tin American writer to receive the Nobel Prize for literature.

Langston Hughes 1902–1967 Man of the People Langston Hughes was a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, a cultural movement of the 1920s and 1930s celebrating African-American artistic expression. He was one of the first artists to champion the beauty of blues songs, which he called ed music from “black, black, beaten, but unbeatable ble throats.” Blues songs, and the e “low-down folks” who sang ng them, were a lifelong inspiration piration for Hughes, who drew on their rhythms, motifs, ifs, and themes in his poems, short stories, essays, s, and novels.

Authors Online Go to thinkcentral.com. KEYWORD: HML10-817

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Lord Randall

Which character in “Lord Randall” might this image represent? Cite details that support your answer.

Anonymous

“Oh where ha’e ye1 been, Lord Randall my son? O where ha’e ye been, my handsome young man?” “I ha’e been to the wild wood: mother, make my bed soon, For I’m weary wi’2 hunting, and fain3 wald4 lie down.” a 5

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DIALECT Reread the first stanza. What words capture the qualities of spoken language?

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“Where gat ye your dinner, Lord Randall my son? Where gat ye your dinner, my handsome young man?” “I dined wi’ my true love: mother, make my bed soon, For I’m weary wi’ hunting, and fain wald lie down.” “What gat ye to your dinner, Lord Randall my son? What gat ye to your dinner, my handsome young man?” “I gat eels boiled in broo: 6 mother, make my bed soon, For I’m weary wi’ hunting and fain wald lie down.” “What became of your bloodhounds, Lord Randall my son? What became of your bloodhounds, my handsome young man?” “O they swelled and they died: mother, make my bed soon, For I’m weary wi’ hunting and fain wald lie down.” “O I fear ye are poisoned, Lord Randall my son! O I fear ye are poisoned, my handsome young man!” “Oh yes, I am poisoned: mother, make my bed soon, For I’m sick at the heart, and I fain wald lie down.” b

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BALLAD How does the ballad’s pattern of repetition change in this stanza?

1. ha’e ye (hAP yCP): have you. 2. wi’ (wG): with. 3. fain (fAn): gladly, eagerly. 4. wald (wBld): would. 5. gat ye (gBt yC): did you get. 6. broo (brL): brew, broth.

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unit 7: the language of poetry

The Vitriol Thrower (1894), Eugene Grasset. Color lithograph. Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom. Photo © Bridgeman Art Library.

Gabriela Mistral

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He passed by with another; I saw him pass by. The wind ever sweet and the path full of peace. And these eyes of mine, wretched, saw him pass by! He goes loving another over the earth in bloom. The hawthorn1 is flowering and a song wafts by. He goes loving another over the earth in bloom! c

Text He notkissed available for online use. the other Please to your print byrefer the shores of the sea.textbook. 15 The orange-blossom moon skimmed over the waves. And my heart’s blood did not taint2 the expanse of the sea!

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He will go with another through eternity. Sweet skies will shine. (God wills to keep silent.) And he will go with another through eternity! Translated by Doris Dana

1. hawthorn: a spring-flowering shrub. 2. taint (tAnt): contaminate.

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unit 7: the language of poetry

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BALLAD Reread stanzas 1 and 2. What examples of repetition can you identify?

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SYMBOLS A symbol is a person, place, object, or activity that represents something beyond itself. Often that “something” is an abstract idea, such as hope. For example, chess pieces in a story may symbolize various characters, or a young person’s car trip might represent the journey to adulthood. What do you think “my heart’s blood” (line 17) symbolizes?

Gabriela Mistral

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El pasó con otra; yo le vi pasar. Siempre dulce el viento y el camino en paz. ¡Y estos ojos míseros le vieron pasar!

El va amando a otra por la tierra en flor. Ha abierto el espino; 10 pasa una canción. él va amando a otra Text not¡Yavailable for online por la tierra en flor! use. Please refer to your print Eltextbook. besó a la otra a orillas del mar; 15 resbaló en las olas la luna de azahar. ¡Y no untó mi sangre la extensión del mar!

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El irá con otra por la eternidad Habrá cielos dulces. (Dios quiere callar.) ¡Y él irá con otra por la eternidad!

Melancholy, Edvard Munch. National Gallery, Oslo, Norway. © 2008 The Munch Museum/The Munch-Ellingsen Group/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo © Scala/Art Resource, New York.

ballad / balada

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Midwinter

Blu Blues llues ues

Graffiti Divas (2003), Jen Thario. Spray paint on paper, 22˝ × 22˝. © Jen Thario.

Lan gst on Hu Langston Hughes gh es

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In the middle of the winter, Snow all over the ground. In the middle of the winter, Snow all over the ground— ’Twas the night befo’ Christmas My good man turned me down.

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Don’t know’s I’d mind his goin’ But he left me when the coal was low. Don’t know’s I’d mind his goin’ But he left when the coal was low. Now, if a man loves a woman That ain’t no time to go. f He told me that he loved me But he must a been tellin’ a lie. He told me that he loved me. He must a been tellin’ a lie. But he’s the only man I’ll Love till the day I die. I’m gonna buy me a rose bud An’ plant it at my back door, Buy me a rose bud, Plant it at my back door, So when I’m dead they won’t need No flowers from the store.

unit 7: the language of poetry

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BALLAD Compare this opening stanza with that of “Lord Randall.” What qualities do the poems share?

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DIALECT Based on the dialect used in this poem, what do you learn about the speaker’s identity?

After Reading

Comprehension 1. Recall Where has Lord Randall been, and what has happened to him? 2. Clarify Why is the speaker of “Ballad” so distressed? 3. Summarize In “Midwinter Blues,” what is the speaker’s situation?

Text Analysis

RL 4 Analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning. RL 5 Analyze an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text. W 2f Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from the information or explanation presented.

4. Identify Ballad Reread “Lord Randall” and “Ballad.” Using a chart like the one shown, compare how the elements of the traditional ballad are used in both poems. How does Mistral’s poem depart from a traditional ballad? Ballad Characteristics

Examples from “Lord Randall”

Examples from “Ballad”

Single tragic incident Repetition Dialogue Four-line stanzas Regular rhyme and meter

5. Analyze Dialect Review your dialect chart. How does dialect help establish the voices of the speakers in “Lord Randall” and “Midwinter Blues”? 6. Contrast Speakers Contrast the attitudes of the speakers in “Ballad” and “Midwinter Blues.” How does the language used in each poem communicate the speaker’s emotional state?

reading-writing connection writing prompt

revising tip

Extended Constructed Response: Opinion

Review your response. Does it point out both similarities and differences between the speakers’ experiences? Is the conclusion you formulated supported by details? If not, revise.

Compare and contrast the experiences of each speaker. What do their experiences suggest about the nature of romantic love? Support your argument with details from the poems in a three-to five-paragraph response.

When does poetry SING? Why are poems and songs so often about love and loss?

lord r andall / ballad / midwinter blues

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