The Ballad Lady Clare' is about a woman finding that she is not a rich Lady, but she is in-fact a poor maid. she then goes to her fiancé and, trusting his love for her, tells the truth. The Lady in the ballad was not rich because the real Lady Clare died while feeding from the nurse and the she swapped the child with her own. I think the nurse swapped the children for two reasons; one was to save her job and two was to give her child a better life than the she could have given her.
The ballad has quite a lot of detail and you can understand the feelings of some of the characters quite well like when the nurse says to Lay Clare'' - "give one kiss to mother dear alas! My child I sinned for thee-- in this quote I think the nurse is saying that she knows that shi did wrong but she did it in the best interests of her child. The ballad is very well told because it goes into a lot of detail, explaining some points very well, it also gave you a clear description of lady Clare's personality because, in the ballad although the doe had only just met Lady Clare it followed her and trusted, her this meant that she was a very caring girl. .
In some ways Lady Clare is a typical ballad because it :.
• Has a leading and strong character.
• Tells a story.
• Set in a historical setting.
And this is what most ballads have.
In other ways Lady Clare' is not a typical ballad in that:.
• It has no repeating chorus .
• It is not in song form.
• It has no rhyming in it.
Tennyson makes his characters seem quite real in that he shows you their feelings and, without you even realising it, makes you create a picture of them in your mind. From the way the three characters behave in the ballad we find that Lady Clare and Lord Ronald are from quite rich or well- off backgrounds, but the nurse on the other hand is from a poor background. The characters show their feelings fir one another quite well- for example Lord Ronald gave Lady Clare a lily- white doe' as a gift and a sign of his affection towards her.