Broadside Ballads or Songs – Literary Terms

Literary Terms Broadside Ballads or Songs, what is Broadside Ballads?

Broadside Ballads or Songs – Literary Terms

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Broadside:  

A large sheet of paper printed on one side only and meant for distribution or posting. BALLADS published in this manner in England (especially during the sixteenth century) were called broadside ballads, or simply broadsides. Their quality and subject matter varied widely: hack-written accounts of executions or disasters, reproductions of traditional ballads, religious and political attacks, satires, and personal attacks. They were popular in England well into the nineteenth century.

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Broadside Ballads from Oxford Dictionary:

It is a large sheet of paper printed on one side only, often  containing a song or *BALLAD, and sold by wandering pedlars in Britain  from the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th century, when  they were superseded by mass-circulation newspapers; they also appeared in the USA in the late 19th century. The broadside ballads were  intended to be sung to a well-known tune; often they related topical events, and some were adopted as *FOLK SONGS. Broadsides are  sometimes called broadsheets.