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Astrophe (/ˈstroʊfiː/) is a poetic term originally referring to the first part of theode inAncient Greek tragedy, followed by theantistrophe andepode. The term has been extended to also mean a structural division of a poem containingstanzas of varying line length. Strophic poetry is to be contrasted with poems composed line-by-line non-stanzaically, such as Greekepic poems or Englishblank verse, to which the termstichic applies.
In its original Greek setting, "strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind ofstanza framed only for the music", asJohn Milton wrote in the preface toSamson Agonistes, with the strophe chanted by aGreek chorus as it moved from right to left across the scene.
Strophe (fromGreekστροφή, "turn, bend, twist") is a concept inversification which properly means a turn, as from onefoot to another, or from one side of a chorus to the other.
In a more general sense, the strophe is a pair ofstanzas of alternating form on which the structure of a given poem is based, with the strophe usually being identical to the stanza in modern poetry and its arrangement and recurrence of rhymes giving it its character. But the Greeks called a combination of verse-periods a system, giving the name "strophe" to such a system only when it was repeated once or more in unmoved form.
A simple form of Greek strophe is the Sapphic strophe. Like all Greek verse, it is composed of alternating long and short syllables (symbolized by— for long,u for short andx for either long or short) in this case arranged in the following manner:[1]
— u — x — u u — u — —
— u — x — u u — u — —
— u — x — u u — u — x — u u — —
Far more complex forms are found in the odes ofPindar and the choral sections ofGreek drama.
In choral poetry, it is common to find the strophe followed by a metrically identicalantistrophe, which may – in Pindar and otherepinician poets – be followed in turn by a metrically dissimilarepode,[2] creating anAAB form.
It is said[by whom?] thatArchilochus first created the strophe by binding together systems of two or three lines. But it was theGreek ode-writers who introduced the practice of strophe-writing on a large scale, and the art was attributed toStesichorus, although it is likely that earlier poets were acquainted with it. The arrangement of anode in a splendid and consistent artifice of strophe,antistrophe andepode was carried to its height byPindar.
With the development of Greekprosody, various peculiar strophe-forms came into general acceptance, and were made celebrated by the frequency with which leading poets employed them. Among these were theSapphic, theElegiac, theAlcaic, and theAsclepiadean strophe, all of them prominent in Greek and Latin verse. The briefest and the most ancient strophe is thedactylic distich, which consists of two verses of the same class of rhythm, the second producing a melodic counterpart to the first.
The forms in modern English verse which reproduce most exactly the impression aimed at by the ancient ode strophe are the elaborate rhymed stanzas of such poems asKeats'Ode to a Nightingale orMatthew Arnold'sThe Scholar-Gipsy.
A strophic form of poetry calledMuwashshah developed inAndalucia as early as the 9th century CE, which then spread to North Africa and the Middle East. Muwashshah was typically in classical Arabic, with the refrain sometimes in the local dialect.
The term strophe is used in modern and post-modern criticism to indicate "long non-isomorphic units" of verse whereas the term "stanza [is used] for more regular ones".[3]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Strophe".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 1042.| International | |
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