BARBARA ALLAN ANALYSIS

Stacy Thompson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

We don’t know who the author

is.

Folk tale

GENRE OF POEM

ballad

INTERPRETAT ION OF POEM(WHAT HAPPEN)

This man named john Graeme sent someone

to bring Barbara Allan to him so he could tell

her that he is sick and dying. She rejects him

and then the bells ring and Graeme is died and

she tells her mother that her loved died for her

today and she will die tomorrow for him.

THEME

Always go for you want and never

give up.

DEFINING DIFFICULT WORDS

Sal. Shall

Dinna ye mind. Don’t you remember

Adieu adieu.

ALLUSIONS

“Since my loved died for me

today , ill die for him tomorrow”

A MORE MODERN TRANSLATION

A woman who rejects her lover because he

has “slighted” her and hurt her feelings.

Barbara’s lover dies of a broken heart from her

rejection of him, and after his death, she

realizes her mistake. That realization results in

her own death, also of a broken heart. Their

tragic love seems to live on, though, in the

symbolic intertwining of the rose and brier that

grow from their graves.