20 pages • 40 minutes read
Gwendolyn BrooksThe Ballad of Rudolph Reed
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1963A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
“The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” is a ballad, a narrative poem consisting of quatrains (four-line stanzas), a rhyme scheme of ABCB or ABAB in each stanza, and lines that contain three to four beats or accented syllables. Brooks adheres to the ballad form throughout most of the poem, but there are some noticeable exceptions.
In the first stanza, Brooks adheres to ballad form with an ABCB rhyme scheme but relies on a pattern of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, usually three to a line. Note the beats in the first stanza:
Rudolph | Reed was| oaken.
His wife |was oaken | too.
And his two | good girls | and his good | little man
Oakened | as they | grew (Lines 1-4).
That alternating stress gives most lines the musical sound one associates with traditional ballads, many of which were shared as songs performed in communal settings. The third line has four beats, and that interruption in the regular pattern underscores what later becomes clear in the poem, which is that Reed’s connection to his children is an intense one that exceeds reason and restraint.
Another departure from form appears in the fifth stanza, where Rudolph Reed commits to finding a good home. The repeating “it” at the end of Lines 18, 19, and 20 technically makes the rhyme scheme ABBB. The repetition conveys Reed’s determination to pay any cost to secure that home, and Brooks then shifts to the narrative of what that cost is.
The overall organization of the poem reinforces its narrative nature. “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” has three parts. The first to fifth stanzas are the first act, in which Brooks introduces the tragic, heroic figure and his motivation. In the sixth-10th stanzas, the hero overcomes an initial challenge and achieves his dream. In the 11th-16th stanzas, the hero engages in an epic struggle and dies bravely. The last stanza is a resolution that highlights the central irony of the ballad, which is that the hero proves his love, but the cost of that proof is death that separates him from the beloved. By choosing the ballad form, Brooks is making the case for Black struggle against racism as heroic.
Diction
Brooks relies on both simple and archaic (formal, old-fashioned) diction to develop tone. Most word choices in the poem are simple and straightforward, which is typical of ballads, a popular form meant to be shared and understood by all. In other instances, Brooks emphasizes the ballad form by relying on archaic words. For example, when he confronts the agent’s ridicule, “Nary a grin grinned Rudolph Reed, / Nary a curse cursed he” (Lines 29-30). “Nary” is an archaic term for “never a,” and it can be found in ballads and poems from the 18th century. When Brooks uses this archaic language it is a cue to the reader to see Rudolph Reed’s struggle as an ancient, universal one—the struggle to secure a home and safety for one’s family.
Repetition
Brooks uses repetition for emphasis and to create structure in the poem. In the fourth stanza, Brooks has Rudolph Reed repeat “room” / “rooms” (Lines 15-16) to emphasize the importance of space in which to raise his family and how significant having good housing is to him. Brooks also repeats the phrase “[n]ary a curse cursed he” (Lines 30, 43) to emphasize how forbearing and patient Reed has been each time he is forced to confront racism. The second instance of the line occurs on the second night racists throw rocks through the window of Reed’s house, linking Reed’s nonviolent response to the agent and his nonviolent response to the faceless neighbors hurling the rocks.
In ballads, repetition creates tension in the narrative because with each repetition, the hero comes closer to whatever force it is that will kill them or deny them love. In this poem, the unhappy neighbors throw rocks through the window on three successive nights, with the third night being the one that undoes Rudolph Reed’s restraint and leads to his death.
Related Titles
By Gwendolyn Brooks
