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Strophe
A strophe () is a poetic term originally referring to the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. The term has been extended to also mean a structural division of a poem containing stanzas of varying line length. Strophic poetry is to be contrasted with poems composed line-by-line non-stanzaically, such as Greek epic poems or English blank verse, to which the term '' stichic'' applies. In its original Greek setting, "strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed only for the music", as John Milton wrote in the preface to '' Samson Agonistes'', with the strophe chanted by a Greek chorus as it moved from right to left across the scene. Etymology Strophe (from Greek στροφή, "turn, bend, twist") is a concept in versification which properly means a turn, as from one foot to another, or from one side of a chorus to the other. Poetic structure In a more general sense, the strophe is a pair of stanzas of alte ...
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Antistrophe
Antistrophe (, "a turning back") is the portion of an ode sung by the chorus in its returning movement from west to east in response to the strophe, which was sung from east to west. Characteristics Usage as a literary device It has the nature of a reply and balances the effect of the strophe. Thus, in Gray'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: When the sections of the chorus have ended their responses, they unite and close in the epode, thus exemplifying the triple form, in which the ancient sacred hymns of Greece were coined, from the days of Stesichorus onwards. As Milton says: " strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed for the music then used with the chorus that sang". Other semantic usage ''Antistrophe'' was also a kind of ancient dance Dance is an The arts, art fo ...
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Poetry
Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in place of, Denotation, literal or surface-level meanings. Any particular instance of poetry is called a poem and is written by a poet. Poets use a variety of techniques called poetic devices, such as assonance, alliteration, Phonaesthetics#Euphony and cacophony, euphony and cacophony, onomatopoeia, rhythm (via metre (poetry), metre), and sound symbolism, to produce musical or other artistic effects. They also frequently organize these effects into :Poetic forms, poetic structures, which may be strict or loose, conventional or invented by the poet. Poetic structures vary dramatically by language and cultural convention, but they often use Metre (poetry), rhythmic metre (patterns of syllable stress or syllable weight, syllable (mora) weight ...
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Pindar
Pindar (; ; ; ) was an Greek lyric, Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, Greece, Thebes. Of the Western canon, canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar is by far the greatest, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence, characteristics which, as Horace rightly held, make him inimitable." His poems can also, however, seem difficult and even peculiar. The Athenian comic playwright Eupolis once remarked that they "are already reduced to silence by the disinclination of the multitude for elegant learning". Some scholars in the modern age also found his poetry perplexing, at least until the 1896 discovery of some poems by his rival Bacchylides; comparisons of their work showed that many of Pindar's idiosyncrasies are typical of archaic genres rather than of only the poet himsel ...
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Epode
According to one meaning of the word, an epode is the third part of an ancient Greek choral ode that follows the strophe and the antistrophe and completes the movement. The word epode is also used to refer to the second (shorter) line of a two-line stanza of the kind composed by Archilochus and Hipponax in which the first line consists of a dactylic hexameter or an iambic trimeter.West, M. L. (1987)''An Introduction to Greek Metre'' Oxford.; p. 31. (See Archilochian.) It can also be used (as in Horace's Epodes) to refer to poems written in such stanzas. Evolution In the performance of a choral ode, at a certain point in time the choirs, which had previously chanted to the right of the altar or stage, and then to the left of it, combined and sang in unison, or permitted the '' coryphaeus'' to sing for them all, while standing in the centre. The epode soon took its place in choral poetry, which it lost when that branch of literature declined. But it extended beyond the ode, and ...
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Muwashshah
''Muwashshah'' ( ' ' girdled'; plural '; also ' 'girdling,' pl. ') is a strophic poetic form that developed in al-Andalus in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. The ', embodying the Iberian rhyme revolution, was the major Andalusi innovation in Arabic poetry, and it was sung and performed musically. The ''muwaššaḥ'' features a complex rhyme and metrical scheme usually containing five ' ( 'branches'; sing. '), with uniform rhyme within each strophe, interspersed with ' ( 'threads for stringing pearls'; sing. ') with common rhyme throughout the song, as well as a terminal '' kharja'' ( 'exit'), the song's final ''simṭ'', which could be in a different language. Sephardic poets also composed ' in Hebrew, sometimes as ''contrafacta'' imitating the rhyme and metrical scheme of a particular poem in Hebrew or in Arabic. This poetic imitation, called ' ( 'contrafaction'), is a tradition in Arabic poetry. The '' kharja'', or the ''markaz'' ( 'center') of the ', its fin ...
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Stesichorus
Stesichorus (; , ''Stēsichoros''; c. 630 – 555 BC) was a Greek Greek lyric, lyric poet native of Metauros (Gioia Tauro today). He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres, and for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing verses first insulting and then flattering to Helen of Troy. He was ranked among the nine lyric poets esteemed by the scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria, and yet his work attracted relatively little interest among ancient commentators, so that remarkably few fragments of his poetry now survive. As David Campbell notes: "Time has dealt more harshly with Stesichorus than with any other major lyric poet." Recent discoveries, recorded on Egyptian papyrus (notably and controversially, the Lille Stesichorus),P.J. Parsons, "The Lille Stesichorus", ''Zeitschreift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik'' Vol. 26 (1977), pages 7–36 have led to some i ...
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Stanza
In poetry, a stanza (; from Italian ''stanza'', ; ) is a group of lines within a poem, usually set off from others by a blank line or indentation. Stanzas can have regular rhyme and metrical schemes, but they are not required to have either. There are many different forms of stanzas. Some stanzaic forms are simple, such as four-line quatrains. Other forms are more complex, such as the Spenserian stanza. Fixed verse poems, such as sestinas, can be defined by the number and form of their stanzas. The stanza has also been known by terms such as ''batch'', ''fit'', and ''stave''. The term ''stanza'' has a similar meaning to ''strophe'', though ''strophe'' sometimes refers to an irregular set of lines, as opposed to regular, rhymed stanzas. Even though the term "stanza" is taken from Italian, in the Italian language the word "strofa" is more commonly used. In music, groups of lines are typically referred to as '' verses''. The stanza in poetry is analogous with the paragrap ...
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Epinician
The ''epinikion'' or ''epinicion'' (: ''epinikia'' or ''epinicia'', Greek , from ''epi-'', "on", + '' nikê'', "victory") is a genre of occasional poetry also known in English as a victory ode. In ancient Greece, the ''epinikion'' most often took the form of a choral lyric, commissioned for and performed at the celebration of an athletic victory in the Panhellenic Games and sometimes in honor of a victory in war. Major poets in the genre are Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar. Origins Since the poets most often call their victory songs ''hymnoi'' (), it has been conjectured that hymns for Heracles, honored as the founder of the Olympic Games, were the original model for the athletic ''epinikion''. Victory odes are also associated with the Dioscuri; Pindar uses the term "Castor-song" (), and Polydeuces (Pollux), the mortal twin of Castor, was a boxer. Although the best-known ''epinikia'' appear to have been composed for a chorus, they may have originally been performed by a s ...
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Strophic Form
Strophic form – also called verse-repeating form, chorus form, AAA song form, or one-part song form – is a song structure in which all verses or stanzas of the text are sung to the same music. Contrasting song forms include through-composed, with new music written for every stanza, and ternary form, with a contrasting central section. Etymology Strophe is derived from the Greek word (''strophḗ'', "turn"). It is the simplest and most durable of musical forms, extending a piece of music by repetition of a single formal section. This may be analyzed as "A A A...". This additive method is the musical analogue of repeated stanzas in poetry or lyrics and, in fact, where the text repeats the same rhyme scheme from one stanza to the next, the song's structure also often uses either the same or very similar material from one stanza to the next. Format A ''modified'' strophic form varies the pattern in some stanzas (A A' A"...) somewhat like a rudimentary theme and variati ...
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Andalucia
Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognized as a historical nationality and a national reality. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga, and Seville. Its capital city is Seville, while the seat of its High Court of Justice is the city of Granada. Andalusia is immediately south of the autonomous communities of Extremadura and Castilla-La Mancha; west of the autonomous community of Region of Murcia, Murcia and the Mediterranean Sea; east of Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean; and north of the Mediterranean Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar. The British Overseas Territory and city of Gibraltar, located at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar, shares a land border with the Andalusian provin ...
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John Keats
John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculosis at the age of 25. They were indifferently received in his lifetime, but his fame grew rapidly after his death. By the end of the century, he was placed in the canon of English literature, strongly influencing many writers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' of 1888 described his "Ode to a Nightingale" as "one of the final masterpieces". Keats had a style "heavily loaded with sensualities", notably in the series of odes. Typically of the Romantics, he accentuated extreme emotion through natural imagery. Today his poems and letters remain among the most popular and analysed in English literature – in particular "Ode to a Nightingale", " Ode on a Grecian Urn", " Sleep and Poetry" and the sonnet " ...
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Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the Geography of Greece, mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Sea of Crete and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin, spanning List of islands of Greece, thousands of islands and nine Geographic regions of Greece, traditional geographic regions. It has a population of over 10 million. Athens is the nation's capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city, followed by Thessaloniki and Patras. Greece is considered the cradle of Western culture, Western civilisation and the birthplace of Athenian democracy, democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major History of science in cl ...
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