Final Essay

Money, its described as the root of all evil, and yet everyone seems to talk about money a lot. Anytime you turn on the news it’s talking about money, most popular songs talk about money as well, whether it be a lack of or an excess amount. Money is the one thing we can seem to avoid, yet everyone acknowledges its danger. In fact people have been talking about the danger of money since 1800’s! Ballade of Wordly Wealth is a poem about this very subject. In this poem we see a truthful but sad study of the effect money has on everyone.

First lets breakdown what this poem is structurally. This poem is an example of Didactic poetry, “Inclined to teach or moralize excessively.” This poems goal is to inform, or warn, of the dangers of money. The tone/mood of the poem can be interrupted to ways I believe, I can be looked at as an negative showing of human nature, or it can be looked at in an teaching manor, or forewarning tone perhaps. The poem itself is also a ballad with eight lines in each stanza, and three stanzas. Stanza one is how money tricks us, two is how it can bring us pleasure, three is how it corrupts us, even the religious.

This poem is a great analysis of people in the 1800’s by Andrew Lang, he points out the order in which money entices us. Money tricks us into believing we deserve it or there’s nothing wrong with it, it keeps us by showing the many pleasures it brings, as shown with the reference of “maketh festival” and “Gaineth ladies”. Lastly it corrupts us, changing the fiber of our very being into something evil. Money trickery is very powerful and I can easily turn a good person into something bad.