BONNY BARBARA ALLEN – Analysis

Fourth stanza

Rhythm: A B C B

The first couplet contains the speech of Sir John while the second conteins Barbara's one.

This stanza is the continuation of the previous one: Barbara Allen has come to the bedside of the young man. Faced with Barbara's detached words, John tells her to be sick because of his unreturned love. Drawing a rude scene, Barbara answers John not to want his welfare.

By the cold words of the woman, the reader hears the hate that she feels towards the man and he/she is invited to go on reading to know the reason why.

To highlight how severe was Sir John's illness, the poet put in the first verse the repetition of the words "very sick".

Fifth stanza

Rhythm: A B C B

Even in this quatrain the voices are two: that of Barbara Allen and that of the narrator who breaks the length of the woman's sentence intervening with two words, "she said."

In these four verses the reader is informed about the reason why Barbara holds a grudge against Sir John: he had previously rejected her when she was looking for him in the taverns where he used to drink and play. Barbara asks the man who was dying if he would remember those moments and to make the language more musical some words are changed, as the pronoun "you" that is changed with "ye".

To make easier the reading of the quatrain the poet used some alliteration: the repetition of sounds "y" and "m" in the first verse and of sounds "w" and "n" in the second one.

He also used and incremental repetition to make the third verse more musical: “round and round”.

Sixth stanza

Rhythm: A B A B

This quatrain contents a different rhythm because it marks the end of Sir John's life.

The voices remain the same as the previous quatrain and, as it happens in the third stanza, each interlocutor takes a couplet.

From the very first reading of the first verse the reader can note the alliteration of the sound "t", with which the poet presents the current scene of the ballad. Sir John is almost dying and is going to pronounce his last words to Barbara Allen, after having turned his face to the wall. To emphasize the mother action of this stanza the poet used a figure of speech, the hendiadys, which connects "death" with "dealing". This also underlines the personification of the death.

In the second couplet there are Sir John's words. With the repetition of the French word "adieu" instead of English goodbye at the beginning of the third verse, the reader is immediately made aware of the fate of the young man.

This will be the last sentence he utters before dying.

Sir John's words are not addressed to Barbara but to his friends, whom he asks to be kind with the woman after his death.

Seventh stanza

Rhythm: A B C B

To make this scene memorable the author plays on the allitteration of the sound "s" from the first to the last verse.

This stanza describes the leave of Barbara Allen from the deathbed of the man. The presence of pain that the woman feels after the death of the man is extended by the repetition of the adverb "slowly". After man's death, Barbara Allen remembers the love she feels for Sir John Graeme and she suffers.

Eighth stanza

Rhythm: A B C B

The last stanza, like all previous quatrains, contains more than one voice, that of the narrator and that of the dead-bells which are ringing. For the fourth time is used the word “death” which contains the conclusion of the text and the fate of those who live without love.

While she was walking away from the bedside of the Sir, his attention was drawn by the bells sounding his death.

Even the reader's attention is drawn by the use of an important figure of speech, the anaphora. In the third and in the fourth lines are repeated the words "dead-bell".

The text opens with falling in love of the man and ends with the woman's pain. This contrast shows the cause and the effect of love.

As it happened in the other four quatrains, even this one ends with the woman's name, which is also the title of the text, because she's the real protagonist of the ballad.