Textuality » 3A Interacting
In the present essay I'm going to compare two ballads: Lord Randal and The Wife of Usher's Well.
As far as content in the first ballad there Is the death of an aristocratic man, on the contrary in the second one the composer tells the reader about the death of three sons.
The three sons must have not been very rich people because they died after they had left home to go over the sea; Lord Randal instead died while hunting, a typical activity of aristocratic people.
He died entertaining himself, he died for love (his true-love poisoned him), on he contrary the reader can suppose that the three sons died while working.
A common element in both ballads is one character: a mother. One is Lord Randal's mother and the other is the sons' mother.
Both are strongly closed to their sons, they are worried for them; a common theme is the relationship between mother and sons.
From the sound aspect, both ballads could survive because the composers used a lot of sound devices that are typical features of medieval ballads.
There are frequent alliterations, incremental repetitions, refrains and stock phrases.
The language is simple and repetitive: in Lord Randal it is a bit more refined because of the social status of the main character.
In the Wife of Usher's Well the characters are ordinary people: they are connected to material goods useful to the life of every day and they describe them with simple words.
The theme of the death is a theme that prevails analysing the two ballads.
At the time, in the Middle Ages, people were worried about it and wanted to save their soul.
So the culture of that time is reflected in the compositions.