Lord Randal analysis

Right from the title the main character is presented "Lord Randall". The title also tells us that this character is an aristocratic, he has the title "Lord". The ballad is composed of ten quatrains (four lines stanzas) which is the typical structure of the medieval ballad. The lines are long and there isn't a narrator's voice, there s only speech. Each stanza is similar to the others: the last lines of the first five quatrains are the same and the last lines of the others quatrains are the same; this is a repetition that help to remember the ballad.

In the first two lines of all the quatrains there are Lord Randal's mother's questions and in the last two lines there are Lord Randal's answer. The third line of each stanza is similar to the other, the incremental repletion helps the remembering. In the third lines the sound "m" is repeated, maybe it wants to underline the Lord's orders to his mother. in each mother's speeches the word my ("my son" "my handsome young man") is repeated, this fact wants to describe the mother's love for her  little lord.

The ballad takes place in aristocratic family as the reader can understand from the title and reading the inheritance that Randal would give to his family. The ballad is a supernatural ballad but also a love ballads because it tells us about a tragic love: at the beginning of the ballad love seems to be true but then we understand that Lord Randal's lover had given him a poison to kill him and maybe take his inheritance.