Ballads

About

Stevenson's Ballads (1890) represents his serious engagement with narrative verse — particularly 'The Song of Rahero' and 'The Feast of Famine,' long Polynesian narrative poems written after his time in Samoa. The volume also includes shorter ballads in the Scottish tradition. As reading material, the narrative poems offer long-form performance pieces of unusual geographic range, bringing Pacific island culture into the Scottish ballad tradition.