Summary Of Ballade Of Worldly Wealth: Poem Explication

Poem Explication:
In the poem, “Ballade of Worldly Wealth”, the author, Andrew Lang uses repetition within lines that contain parallel constructions. I think that the author chose to use repetition for the rhetorical pattern as a way to explain his ideas, feelings and tone about the poem’s main concept; money. After reading this ballade, one can easily deduct that the author believes that money can corrupt/destroy an individual’s life or enhance it, depending on how the individual uses said money. Despite the fact that the author mentions/implies that money can either make life better or worse, it is obvious that he feels negatively towards money overall.
This poem is comprised of three stanzas, with each stanza containing eight rhyming lines. These rhyming lines make up the parallel construction, which was the authors way of elaborating on the importance of his repetition and the true meaning of his words. Parallel construction can be found even within the first

stanza when he wrote;
“Money taketh town and wall,
Fort and ramp without a blow,
Money moves the merchants all,
While the tides shall ebb and flow,
Money maketh Evil show
Like the Good, and Truth like lies,
These alone can ne’er bestow
Youth, and health, and paradise.”
In the first stanza the author mainly focuses on and expresses the fact that he believes money has negative effects on the individual and society itself overall due to greed and corruption.

In addition to the focus on the negative impact, the author also points out that money (and the things it can buy/attain) cannot buy/guarantee a person youth, health and “paradise” meaning internal happiness with themselves and life itself.
In the second stanza the author, Andrew Lang, this time focuses more so on the possibility of positive impacts from money in the following lines;
“Money maketh festival,
Wine she buys, and beds can strow,
Round the necks of captains tall,
Money wins them chains to throw,
Marches solciers to and fro,
Gaineth ladies with sweet

eyes:
These alone can ne’er bestow
Youth, and health, and paradise.”
In this second stanza, the author points out the different good things money can buy, however the author also uses repetition at the end of this second stanza from the last two lines of the previous stanza to support the author’s belief that even though money can do good, it causes more negative impact than positive.
In the third and last stanza, Andrew Lang elaborates on the concept that money can have either positive or negative effects and/or impact, completely depending on how the individual perceives, values and uses that money in the following;
“Money wins the priest his stall,
Money mitres buys, I trow,
Red hats for the Cardinal,
Abbeys for the novice low,
Money maketh sin as snow,
Place of penitence supplies:
These alone can ne’er bestow
Youth, and health, and Paradise.”
Even though the author makes the point to mention and imply the potential for both the good and/or bad effects from the use and desire for money, it is obvious from the tone and word usage that he mostly feels negatively about money because he feels that it does more harm than help. One main reason why I can deduct from the poem that he overall feels negative towards money is because of the last two lines to each stanza,
“These alone can ne’er bestow
Youth, and health, and Paradise”
This repetition evidently shows that the author thinks despite the potential good effect of money, he thinks that it cannot provide true happiness, nor real fulfillment because according to his poem and repeated lines, money cannot buy youth, health, or “paradise”.
All things considered, after reading and analyzing each line of this poem, I can conclude that even though the author addresses both the positive and negative effects of money by mentioning what you can and cannot buy (meaning both the harmful and helpful things you can buy), the author obviously leans towards the belief that overall, money is bad and harmful because it is the source of greed and corruption due to money-lust.