 | This article includes a list ofgeneral references, butit lacks sufficient correspondinginline citations. Please help toimprove this article byintroducing more precise citations.(January 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Antistrophe (Ancient Greek:ἀντιστροφή, "a turning back"[1]) is the portion of anode sung by the chorus in its returning movement from west to east in response to thestrophe, which was sung from east to west.[2]
It has the nature of a reply and balances the effect of thestrophe. Thus, inGray's ode called "The Progress of Poesy" (excerpt below), the strophe, which dwelt in triumphant accents on the beauty, power and ecstasy verse, is answered by the antistrophe, in a depressed and melancholy key:[3][4]
Man's feeble race what ills await,
Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain,
Disease and Sorrow's weeping Train,
And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate,
(etc.)
When the sections of the chorus have ended their responses, they unite and close in theepode, thus exemplifying the triple form, in which the ancient sacred hymns of Greece were coined, from the days ofStesichorus onwards. AsMilton says: "strophe, antistrophe andepode were a kind ofstanza framed for the music then used with the chorus that sang".[3][5]
Antistrophe was also a kind of ancientdance, wherein dancers stepped sometimes to the right, and sometimes to the left, still doubling their turns or conversions. The motion toward the left, they calledantistrophe, fromἀντί, "against", andστροφή, ofστρέφω, "I turn".
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Antistrophe".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 146.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chambers, Ephraim, ed. (1728).Cyclopædia, or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (1st ed.). James and John Knapton, et al.{{cite encyclopedia}}:Missing or empty|title= (help){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)