strophe
(ˈstrəʊfiː)
Pl. strophes (-fiːz), strophæ (ˈstrəʊfiː). Also 7 in L. form stropha.
[a. Gr. στροϕή, lit. ‘turning’, f. στροϕ-, στρέϕειν to turn. Cf. late L. stropha, Fr. strophe, Sp. estrofa, Pg. estrophe, It. strofa, strofe, stanza.]
1. In Greek choral and lyric poetry, and imitations of this: A series of lines forming a system, the metrical structure of which is repeated in a following system called the antistrophe. Also, in wider sense, one of two or more metrically corresponding series of lines forming divisions of a lyric poem. Hence occas. (after Fr.) used with reference to modern poetry as equivalent to stanza.
Originally the word στροϕή, ‘turning’, was applied to the movement of the chorus from right to left, and ἀντιστροϕή, ‘counter-turn’, to its returning movement from left to right; hence these terms became the designations of the portions of the choric ode sung during these movements respectively.
| 1603 Holland Plutarch's Mor. 1257 By making turnes and winding cranks so strange In all his strophes, and those without the range Of harmony. 1622 [see antistrophe]. 1671 Milton Samson Of Tragedy, The Measure of Verse us'd in the Chorus is of all sorts,..without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe or Epod. 1755 Gray Let. Poems (1775) 233 Neither am I quite of your opinion with regard to strophe and antistrophe;..methinks it has little or no effect on the ear, which scarce perceives the regular return of metres at so great a distance from one another. 1774 Warton Hist. Eng. Poetry I. Diss. i. f 3 b, The bard extorted a speedy pardon..by producing the next day before the king at dinner an ode of more than thirty strophes. 1796 Kollmann Ess. Mus. Harmony xii. 85 It is not sufficient to observe the metre of the verse only according to the nature of its strophes, verses, and feet, with their subdivisions. 1823 Thomasina Ross Bouterwek's Hist. Sp. Lit. I. 243 Luis de Leon..discarded the prolix style of the canzone, and imitated the brevity of the strophes of Horace, in romantic syllabic measures and rhymes. 1837 Carlyle Fr. Rev. III. v. iv, The Address we do not give; for indeed it was in strophes, sung vivâ voce, with all the parts. 1841 Penny Cycl. XX. 420/1 The Sapphic strophe consists of three Sapphic verses followed by a versus Adonicus. 1861 Paley æschylus (ed. 2) 7 agst. Thebes 111 note, Hermann distributes the remainder of the chorus into strophae and antistrophae. 1886 Ruskin Præterita I. 272 The balanced strophes of classic and Hebrew verse. 1895 M. Hewlett Earthwork out of Tuscany 103 What a romance we should have had from Gautier,..what a strophe from Baudelaire half-obscene, half-mournful, wholly melodious. 1896 R. G. Moulton Lit. Study Bible i. 58 The simplest case is where each antistrophe immediately follows its strophe. |
| fig. 1849 J. Martineau Ess., Rev. etc. (1891) IV. 449 Law and love are but the strophe and antistrophe of the great chorus of redemption. |
2. Bot. (See
quot. 1866.) ?
Obs.| 1846 J. Hudson tr. Link in Rep. & Papers Bot. (Ray Soc.) 348 The oblique lines which Schimper called spirals (wendel), and which our author terms ‘Strophes’. 1866 Treas. Bot. 1105/1 Strophe, a term applied to the spirals formed in the development of leaves. 1900 B. D. Jackson Gloss. Bot. Terms. Strophes pl. any spirals shown in phyllotaxy. |