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Sob-Ballads
Robert Von Hallberg, Helen A. Regenstein Professor, Department of English, University of Chicago
May 17, 2007

Modernism's critique of sentimentality in literature effectively banished the expression of feeling in poetry until the late 1950s, when the Beats and the Confessional Poets recovered sentiment.  But there is a body of popular poetry--great songs identified with the repertoires of figures like Frank Sinatra--that had previously embodied not only extravagant sentiment but also a critique of feeling.  This paper identifies and discusses the popular genre of the "sob-ballad," which, in the performances of such artists as Sinatra explored the direct expression of powerful feeling, understood its hazards, and elaborated a model of its transcendence through narrative, reflection, and enlightenment.