, Lithuania
Ballads and Romances are deeply rooted in historical and local realities. The setting of the events is precisely described and includes places like Świteź,
Płużyny and Ruta. This familiar reality is confronted by the world of the
supernatural in which everyday life is governed by unpredictable supernatural forces and the things considered to be known turn out to be dangerous and mysterious. The interference of such forces may have an
ethical character, which judges human deeds, restores the
moral order, encourages responsibility for one's actions and punishes for wrongdoings as exemplified in
Lilije,
Rybka, and
Świtezianka ballads. Such a view of
reality in which the everyday world interacts with the supernatural and extrasensory one had a polemical character and was in stark contrast to the
rational perspective adopted during the
Age of Enlightenment. The ballad
Romance (Polish: "Romantyczność") is, in particular, an example of the clash between the rationalism of the Enlightenment and the romantic vision of the world in which the faith in the extrarational understanding of reality and the existence of phenomena which are impossible to grasp by the human mind are postulated. The descriptions of nature in Mickiewicz's ballads serve the purpose of introducing the atmosphere of mystery and horror. This is achieved through the depictions of the landscape which present its wilderness and quietness, the sound of the wind, the moonlight, a cemetery or an old
tserkva. Literary critic, Czesław Zgorzelski, described
Świteź,
Świtezianka and
Rybka as "
rusalka-like" poems which "base the romantic uncanniness of the story on the supernatural metamorphoses which bind humans with nature". Mickiewicz’s close friend
Frederic Chopin’s
ballades for piano may have been inspired by the ideas brought out in Ballads and Romances. ==List of ballads==