Ballads

Ballads are pieces of poetry that have been handed down over the centuries.Mother Goose Rhymes and folk songs fall in this category.They are part of oral culture, learn't and passed on by one generation to the next.As is with other things passed on, these poems are altered and adopted according to the changing times .Over the years there has been very little addition to the existing body of anonymous English poems. In other cultures,for example in Africa,there have been some additions,reason being that the African cultural set-up has undergone more change and transformation over the centuries .These changes also affected their writings and compositions;for example during the nineteenth century,a time of dynamic economic, political and religious change almost the whole of Africa.therefore the poetry and writing of that time reflected the attitudes and reactions towards the coming of the White men;who had suddenly become so much a part of their lives.

By Nsiima Lorna,17.