ANALYSIS OF "LORD RANDAL"

These are the last five stanzas of the ballad named "Lord Randal". In these quatrains there is the final sequence of the story. After the knight has told his mother what has happened, he understands he has been poisoned and he is going to die.

The sixth stanza changes the content of lines which are repeated. This is a turning point because it explains clearly what the situation is and leaves no doubt to the reader about the knight's condition. This poison makes his heart hurt and it may also be understood as the effects of love. Indeed in the first stanzas he calls the fairy "true-love". So this story may be the allegory of the idea of love in the Middle Ages. In that period love was not thought to be something positive and which had to be elevated. Marriage was mainly made for economic or political reasons and love outside marriage was punished and considered a sin. Women who did not get married where thought to be dangerous and possible tempters. So the beautiful woman/fairy gives the knight the poison which means he makes him fall in love.

In the next stanzas the knight tells his mother what he will leave them. He will leave her what she needs as means of support, his gold and silver to his sister and his possessions to his brother. This shows another aspect of Medieval society. He leaves to his mother what she needs to maintain herself because women did not work and depended by their family. He leaves to his sister all the money for her dowry, indeed the main aspect of a woman's life was marriage and her family had to give it to her. He gives to his brother his lands and possessions which also symbolize his power. Indeed inheritance was handed over from men to men and women were excluded from society. This story, like all the others popular ballads, describes Medieval ideas and rules, their way of thinking and their values giving us a more deed knowledge of that period. 

THE MIDDLE AGES

In the Middle Ages everyone's life was dominated by religion, which established values and codes of conduct, which people had to follow if they didn't want to be damned.

In that period many literary forms were born, to express people's ideas and feelings, no matter if they belonged to aristocracy or if they were peasants. One of the main forms of poetry of that period is the Ballad, which was created by common people to be handed down orally, since most part of people was illiterate. These forms of poetry express religious values but also common people's beliefs or events of common life. So the main topics of these poems were stories of tragic love, supernatural adventures or battles between knights.

Since they had to be recited, they present many figures of speech which help memorization. The most used are  repetition, incremental repetition, reframe, alliterative rhymes, assonance, consonance and rhythm.