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Political verse (
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
: ''politikós stíkhos'', πολιτικός στίχος), also known as decapentasyllabic verse (from Greek: ''dekapentasíllavos'', , lit. '15-syllable'), is a common metric form in
Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...
and Modern Greek poetry. It is an iambic verse of fifteen syllables and has been the main
meter The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...
of traditional popular and folk poetry since the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
period. The name is unrelated to the modern English concept of politics and does not imply political content; rather, it derives from the original meaning of the Greek word πολιτικός, civil or
civic Civic is something related to a city or municipality. It also can refer to multiple other things: Civic or CIVIC can also refer to: General *Honda Civic, a car produced by the Honda Motor Co. *Civics, the science of comparative government * Civic ...
, meaning that it was originally a form used for
secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...
poetry, the non-religious entertainment of the people of the
polis Polis (: poleis) means 'city' in Ancient Greek. The ancient word ''polis'' had socio-political connotations not possessed by modern usage. For example, Modern Greek πόλη (polē) is located within a (''khôra''), "country", which is a πατ ...
, the city-state. It is also called "" (' "like-a-chariot-on-a-paved-road") verse, because the words run freely like a
chariot A chariot is a type of vehicle similar to a cart, driven by a charioteer, usually using horses to provide rapid Propulsion, motive power. The oldest known chariots have been found in burials of the Sintashta culture in modern-day Chelyabinsk O ...
on a good driving surface.


History

The political verse flourished from the 9th or 10th century, until the 19th and 20th centuries. It remains in use today, though, mainly by the type of "traditional" folk songs. The term "political" has nothing to do with "
politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
". Πολιτικός also means "civil" or "civic", and at the time it had the meaning "of everyday people". The term appears as early as in the 11th century, and had probably been in use earlier. The first use of political verse in writing is attributed to
John Tzetzes John Tzetzes (; , Constantinople – 1180, Constantinople) was a Byzantine poet and grammarian who lived at Constantinople in the 12th century. He is known for making significant contributions in preserving much valuable information from ancien ...
. His Book of Histories (Khiliades), in 12,000 verses, is written in political verse has the title: "" (By John Tzetzes, book of histories in political verses, called alpha..."). A short "admonitory" poem of his contemporary,
Michael Psellos Michael Psellos or Psellus (, ) was a Byzantine Greeks, Byzantine Greek monk, savant, writer, philosopher, imperial courtier, historian and music theorist. He was born in 1017 or 1018, and is believed to have died in 1078, although it has also b ...
, to the emperor
Constantine IX Monomachos Constantine IX Monomachos (; 980/ 1000 – 11 January 1055) reigned as Byzantine emperor from June 1042 to January 1055. Empress Zoë Porphyrogenita chose him as a husband and co-emperor in 1042, although he had been exiled for conspiring agai ...
is titled: (''Political verses to the Emperor Kyr'' (Sire) ''Constantine Monomachos on Grammar''). Earlier examples can be found in the older Greek poetry that used metres based on prosody, as in the poetry of
Gregory of Nazianzus Gregory of Nazianzus (; ''Liturgy of the Hours'' Volume I, Proper of Saints, 2 January. – 25 January 390), also known as Gregory the Theologian or Gregory Nazianzen, was an early Roman Christian theologian and prelate who served as Archbi ...
(4th century) and even earlier. Examples can be found even in some
Homeric Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his authorship, Homer is ...
verses, but it isn't clear if that occurrence was intentional or incidental.


Form

Each verse is a 15-syllable iambic verse, normally (and in accordance with the
ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
poetical tradition) the Political verse is without
rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually the exact same phonemes) in the final Stress (linguistics), stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of rhyming (''perfect rhyming'') is consciou ...
. So it is a type of
blank verse Blank verse is poetry written with regular metre (poetry), metrical but rhyme, unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th cen ...
of
iambic heptameter In poetry, a fourteener is a line consisting of 14 syllables, which are usually made of seven iambic feet, for which the style is also called iambic heptameter. It is most commonly found in English poetry produced in the 16th and 17th centuries. ...
. The meter consists of lines made from seven ("hepta") feet plus an unstressed syllable. There is a standard cesura (pause in the reading of a line of a verse that does not affect the metrical account of the timing) after the eighth syllable. Rhyme occurs only rarely, especially in the earlier folk songs and poems. Later examples, especially in personal poetry and in songwriting there is rhyme. In those cases the
rhyme scheme A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other. An example of the ABAB rh ...
is more commonly that of the
couplet In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there ...
: aa, or, aa/bb/cc/dd etc.; sometimes the rhyme may appear at the end of the cesura and that of the stanza, or in two successive cesurae. Generally speaking though, rhyme is used quite sparingly, either to make a dramatic point or for comic effect. Each fifteen-syllable verse can be regarded or examined as a "
distich In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive Line (poetry), lines that rhyme and have the same Metre (poetry), metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is en ...
" of two verses, one eight-syllable and one seven-syllable. Its form looks as follows: U — , U — , U — , U — , , U — , U — , U — , U Until the 14th century, the half-foot could begin with two anapests instead of three iambs (Kambylis, A. 1995. Textkritik und Metrik: Überlegungen zu ihrem Verhältnis zueinander. Byzantinische Zeitschrift 88: 38–67): U U — , U U — , U — , , U — , U — , U — , U U — , U — , U — , U — , , U U — , U U — , U To this day, each half-foot can also begin with a
trochee In poetic metre, a trochee ( ) is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, unstressed one, in qualitative meter, as found in English, and in modern linguistics; or in quantitative meter, as found in ...
; this is called
choriamb In Greek and Latin poetry, a choriamb (Ancient Greek: χορίαμβος - ''khoriambos'') is a metron (prosodic foot) consisting of four syllables in the pattern long-short-short-long (— ‿ ‿ —), that is, a trochee alternating with an ...
ic, by comparison to its ancient metrical counterpart. — U , U — , U — , U — , , U — , U — , U — , U — U , U — , U — , U — , , — U , U — , U — , U


Example

A typical example of the use of Political verse in Greek folk poetry is the beginning of the medieval ballad ''The
Bridge of Arta The Bridge of Arta () is a stone bridge that crosses the Arachthos river (Άραχθος) in the west of the city of Arta, Greece, Arta (Άρτα) in northwestern Greece. It has been rebuilt many times over the centuries, starting with Roman archi ...
'' (Το γεφύρι της Άρτας): : This excerpt is also typical in terms of content arrangement: the parts before the cesura make an initial statement and the parts after the cesura append, clarify, or retort that statement.


Technique and structure

The "mechanics" of Political verse is rather straightforward: the verse has a more or less strict form and deviations from it are usually incidental, or the exception than the rule. The structure of each verse follows closely that convention: in the first part of each verse (the first eight syllables) the main theme of the verse is introduced, in the "main clause" of the verse. That It could be a statement, part of a dialogue, or a depiction of some action. Then on the next, seven-syllable, part after the cesura, the main clause is reinforced, or additional information is provided. Either by been explained, or completed, or supplemented, or quite often the theme of the main clause is amplified by been repeated or restated in other words. Political verses are usually, but not exclusively, organized in pairs (thus forming "
stanzas 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. ...
" of two lines, known as distichs or
couplets In poetry, a couplet ( ) or distich ( ) is a pair of successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there ...
). The poem can be as short as a single two-line stanza, or as long as the poet wishes. Some of the early narrative poems consist of thousands of lines. In the case of such "distichs" the second verse shows the same structure with the first, except that it is not introducing the theme of the main clause, but it completes it. As it is apparent each one verse and each main clause of the verses are meaningful by themselves, with the second parts of the verses often being of an explanatory nature.


Grammar and language

The language used with Political verse is of a utilitarian, frugal, type: Nouns, verbs, linking words and pronouns. Adjectives and adverbs are largely absent. That makes the verses much "down-to-earth", and less "pompous". As it is apparent from the description of the "technique" behind the political verse, each verse consists of a main clause and something like a non-defining (non-restrictive)
relative clause A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phrase and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments in the relative clause refers to the noun or noun phrase. For example, in the sentence ''I met a man who wasn ...
.


Ethos: mood and feeling

The " ethos of music" was the term given to describe the effect on character or mood. Political verses when recited for long can be rather monotonous to a modern audience. That is because their form is strict and does not vary greatly from verse to verse. Always the same meter of fifteen-syllable iambic verses, with the cesura after the eighth syllable, on and on. Maybe that is why the Political verses do not regularly identify with rhyme. Regular rhyme can only make their recitation duller and more monotonous. It is true that sometimes the cesura is not after the eighth syllable, or there is no cesura at all. That can give some variation to the general rhythm of the poem. Such cases are the exception rather than the rule, and do not seem to be there to provide variation. They seem incidental, or unavoidable, especially in the case of the old narrative "epic" poems. Yet, the main use of Political verse is not for poems to be recited, but for songs to be sung, and in most cases danced as well. The "monotony" of the recitation, then, disappears in the music and dance, and in that help the movements of the bodies and the musical prosody (in singing some syllables become long, others are short). Also, in the case of narrative poems which are the most likely to be recited, the main focus is on their content, the events they narrate. And thus the monotony of the rhythm of the meter is taken aside, by the interest to the story. Moreover, the monotonous meter can assist memorization. Originally the political verse was a part of an oral poetical tradition, of a largely illiterate medieval society, that found in them an almost natural way to express itself, in such "down-to-earth", and less "pompous" verses.


Use

It seems that the Political verse was used in folk and personal (lyric) poetry alike. For every kind of poems. Love poems, laments, epigrams, admonitory (didactic) and narrative poems. Nowadays the most familiar to us use of Political verses is in medieval long narrative "heroic" or "epic" poems, the
Acritic songs The Acritic songs () are the epic poems that emerged in the Byzantine Empire probably around the ninth century. The songs celebrated the exploits of the Akritai, the frontier guards defending the eastern borders of the Byzantine Empire. The histo ...
epics were, and in traditional folk songs. Political verses are found in Cretan poems of Sahlikis, in the Byzantine romance novels after the 12th century, and also in the, usually "spooky", "paralogaí" (a type of narrative Greek folk tales in a song form, comparable with the European Folk Ballad, with a paranormal or macabre content, made of few tens or few hundred lines) like " The Dead Brother's Song" and throughout in most traditional Greek folk songs, to the present day Greek popular songs.


Analogies in English poetry

In
English poetry This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including the Republic of Ireland after December 1922. The earl ...
the type of meter that resembles, somehow, this Greek Political verse is the one called "
iambic heptameter In poetry, a fourteener is a line consisting of 14 syllables, which are usually made of seven iambic feet, for which the style is also called iambic heptameter. It is most commonly found in English poetry produced in the 16th and 17th centuries. ...
" or a "
fourteener In the mountaineering parlance of the Western United States, a fourteener (also spelled 14er) is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least . The 96 fourteeners in the United States are all west of the Mississippi River. Colorado Co ...
". Such verses can be found in the English poetry, mainly of the 16th century but in other cases as well. An early example is the first translation into English of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" (1567) - credited to Arthur Golding. For example, (from Book 2, THE SECONDE BOOKE OF OVIDS METAMORPHOSIS): The Princely Pallace of the Sunne stood gorgeous to beholde On stately Pillars builded high of yellow burnisht golde, Beset with sparckling Carbuncles that like to fire did shine. Another, later, example is from Lord Byron's Youth and Age: 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath. But in the English poetry the lines have mostly masculine rhyme whereas in Greek poetry the fifteen syllable feminine line is the norm of the Political verse.


Importance

The Political verse characterizes traditional Greek poetry, especially between 1100 and 1850. It is the verse in which most Greek folk songs are written, including such temporally distant works as the medieval Cretan romance " Erotokritos" and the 3rd draft of
Dionysios Solomos Dionysios Solomos (; ; 8 April 1798 – 9 February 1857) was a Greeks, Greek poet from Zakynthos, who is considered to be Greece's national poet. He is best known for writing the ''Hymn to Liberty'' (, ''Ýmnos eis tīn Eleutherían''), whic ...
' "'' The Free Besieged''", considered the masterpiece of modern Greek poetry. It is thought that the political verse replaced, in popularity and also in use, the famous
dactylic hexameter Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter used in Ancient Greek epic and didactic poetry as well as in epic, didactic, satirical, and pastoral Latin poetry. Its name is derived from Greek (, "finger") and (, "six"). Dactylic hexameter consists o ...
of the ancient Greeks (also known as "heroic hexameter") in later Greek poetry, from the time of the early modern Greek, following the loss of ancient prosody and
pitch accent A pitch-accent language is a type of language that, when spoken, has certain syllables in words or morphemes that are prominent, as indicated by a distinct contrasting pitch (music), pitch (tone (linguistics), linguistic tone) rather than by vol ...
, being ideally suited to its replacement, stress accent. This metric form comes "natural" in modern Greek (that is the common Greek, spoken after the 9th or 10th century to the present day), and it is extremely easy to form a "poem" or a "distich" in political verse, almost without a thought. In fact it is such a natural meter for the language that one could actually form continually ones' everyday speech in political verse, if one wished to do so.


See also

* Greek poetry * Mantinada


Bibliography

* Jeffreys, Michael J. "The Nature and Origins of the Political Verse." '' Dumbarton Oaks Papers'' 28 (1974), pp. 141–195.


References

* Babette Deutsch, Poetry Handbook. A dictionary of terms. Fletcher & Son Ltd. Norwich. 1957-1962. SBN 224 61021 X.


External links


Origins of the metrical structure and emergence of mantinada
{{DEFAULTSORT:Political Verse Greek literature Poetic rhythm