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Ballade(ba-LAHD) Frequently represented in French poetry, a fixed form consisting of three seven or eight-line stanzas using no more than three recurrent rhymes with an identical refrain after each stanza and a closing envoi repeating the rhymes of the last four lines of the stanza. A variation containing six stanzas is called a double ballade. Note: The ballade was prominent in French literature from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century and was favored by many poets, including Francois Villon, for example, in his "Des Dames du Temps Jadis." In the nineteenth century it was popular with poets like Verlaine and Baudelaire. In English literature, Chaucer wrote ballades and some late-nineteenth century English poets also used the form. (Compare Chant Royal) References
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