Textuality » 3A Interacting
Textual analysis of the ballad Lord Randal
Right from the start the reader understands that Randal is the main character and that he belongs from the aristocracy. Therefore the intelligent expects something typical of the life of reach people, probably some rituals of the aristocratic class.
The ballad consists on ten four-line stanzas arranged in the form of dialogue between Lord Randal, the protagonist, and his mother. The rhyme scheme is ABAC. It is a narrative poem and according to the typical conventions of the ballads it starts with the climatic episode of the story. In fact reading from the 1st to the 5th stanza the reader can understand that Lord Randal has been poisoned while he was hunting in the green-wood and he has just came back home.
The poem starts with Lord Randal's mother voice: she is worried and wants to know where her son has been. In the first two lines the intelligent reader can immediately understands the relations sheep of affection of the mother towards her son. The composer uses the repetition of the possession adjective "my" before "son" and "men" .In addition the adjective "handsome" and "young" bought underline the mother's idea of her son. Immediately ,after words, the reader understands that the son has a patronizing attitude towards his mother. He gives orders and expects his mother to abbey .
Each stanza of Lord Randal exhibits the typical features of the traditional ballad: arranged into quatrain, using a lot of repetition and incremental repetition ,very simple language and at the same time can return to the reader the idea of the context. Alliteration of the sound "m" recreates the feeling of the suffering of the mother and the alliteration of the sound "w" at line four also focuses the reader attention of the physical weariness of Lord Randal.