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Epode EP
An epodeFrom el, ἐπῳδός, ''epodos'', "singing to/over, an enchanter." is the third part of an ode that follows the strophe and the antistrophe and completes the movement. Evolution At a certain point in time the choirs, which had previously chanted to right of the altar or stage, and then to left of it, combined and sang in unison, or permitted the ''coryphaeus'' to sing for them all, while standing in the centre. With the appearance of Stesichorus and the evolution of choral lyric, a learned and artificial kind of poetry began to be cultivated in Greece, and a new form, the epode-song, came into existence. It consisted of a verse of iambic trimeter, followed by a verse of iambic dimeter, and it is reported that, although the epode was carried to its highest perfection by Stesichorus, an earlier poet, Archilochus, was really the inventor of this form. The epode soon took its place in choral poetry, which it lost when that branch of literature declined. But it extended be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 alternating form ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His surviving works are still read widely and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art. Catullus's poems were widely appreciated by contemporary poets, significantly influencing Ovid and Virgil, among others. After his rediscovery in the Late Middle Ages, Catullus again found admirers such as Petrarch. The explicit sexual imagery which he uses in some of his poems has shocked many readers. Yet, at many instruction levels, Catullus is considered a resource for teachers of Latin. Catullus's style is highly personal, humorous, and emotional; he frequently uses hyperbole, anaphora, alliteration, and diminutives. In 25 of his poems he mentions his devotion to a woman he refers to as "Lesbia", who is widely believed to have been the Roma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prosody (Latin)
Latin prosody (from Middle French ''prosodie'', from Latin ''prosōdia'', from Ancient Greek προσῳδία ''prosōidía'', "song sung to music, pronunciation of syllable") is the study of Latin poetry and its laws of meter. The following article provides an overview of those laws as practised by Latin poets in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire, with verses by Catullus, Horace, Virgil and Ovid as models. Except for the early Saturnian poetry, which may have been accentual, Latin poets borrowed all their verse forms from the Greeks, despite significant differences between the two languages. Latin verse: a Greek gift A brief history The start of Latin literature is usually dated to the first performance of a play by Livius Andronicus in Rome in 240 BC. Livius, a Greek slave, translated Greek New Comedy for Roman audiences. He not only established the genre fabula palliata, but also adapted meters from Greek drama to meet the needs of Latin. He set a precedent f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Literature
Greek literature () dates back from the ancient Greek literature, beginning in 800 BC, to the modern Greek literature of today. Ancient Greek literature was written in an Ancient Greek dialect, literature ranges from the oldest surviving written works until works from approximately the fifth century AD. This time period is divided into the Preclassical, Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Preclassical Greek literature primarily revolved around myths and include the works of Homer; the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey''. The Classical antiquity, Classical period saw the dawn of drama and history. Three philosophers are especially notable: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. During the Roman era, significant contributions were made in a variety of subjects, including history, philosophy, and the sciences. Byzantine literature, the literature of the Byzantine Empire, was written in Atticism, Atticizing, Medieval Greek, Medieval and early Modern Greek. Chronicles, distinct from histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iambic Dimeter
An iamb () or iambus is a metrical foot used in various types of poetry. Originally the term referred to one of the feet of the quantitative meter of classical Greek prosody: a short syllable followed by a long syllable (as in () "beautiful (f.)"). This terminology was adopted in the description of accentual-syllabic verse in English, where it refers to a foot comprising an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (as in ''abóve''). Thus a Latin word like , because of its short-long rhythm, is considered by Latin scholars to be an iamb, but because it has a stress on the first syllable, in modern linguistics it is considered to be a trochee. Etymology R. S. P. Beekes has suggested that the grc, ἴαμβος ''iambos'' has a Pre-Greek origin. An old hypothesis is that the word is borrowed from Phrygian or Pelasgian, and literally means "Einschritt", i. e., "one-step", compare ''dithyramb'' and ''thriambus'', but H. S. Versnel rejects this etymology and sugg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iambic Trimeter
The Iambic trimeter is a meter of poetry consisting of three iambic units (each of two feet) per line. In ancient Greek poetry and Latin poetry, an iambic trimeter is a quantitative meter, in which a line consists of three iambic ''metra''. Each ''metron'' consists of the pattern , x – u – , , where "–" represents a long syllable, "u" a short one, and "x" an ''anceps'' (either long or short). Resolution was common, especially in the first two metra of the line, so that any long or ''anceps'' syllable except the last could be replaced by two short syllables (see for example Euripides#Chronology), making a total of 13 or more syllables. It is the most common meter used for the spoken parts (as opposed to the sung parts) of Ancient Greek tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays. It is also common in iambus or 'blame poetry', although it is not the only meter for that genre. In the accentual-syllabic verse of English, German, and other languages, however, the iambic trimeter is a m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Distich
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on (or open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second. Background The word "couplet" comes from the French word meaning "two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together". The term "couplet" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's '' Arcadia '' in 1590: "In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere." While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in iambic pentameter are called ''heroic couplets''. John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Latin Literature
Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature would flourish for the next six centuries. The classical era of Latin literature can be roughly divided into the following periods: Early Latin literature, The Golden Age, The Imperial Period and Late Antiquity. Latin was the language of the ancient Romans, but it was also the ''lingua franca'' of Western and Central Europe throughout the Middle Ages, so Latin literature includes not only Roman authors like Cicero, Virgil, Ovid and Horace, but also includes European writers after the fall of the Empire, from religious writers like Aquinas (1225–1274), to secular writers like Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677), and Isaac Newton (1642–1727). History Early Latin literature Although literature in Latin fol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ''Odes'' as just about the only Latin lyrics worth reading: "He can be lofty sometimes, yet he is also full of charm and grace, versatile in his figures, and felicitously daring in his choice of words."Quintilian 10.1.96. The only other lyrical poet Quintilian thought comparable with Horace was the now obscure poet/metrical theorist, Caesius Bassus (R. Tarrant, ''Ancient Receptions of Horace'', 280) Horace also crafted elegant hexameter verses (''Satires'' and '' Epistles'') and caustic iambic poetry ('' Epodes''). The hexameters are amusing yet serious works, friendly in tone, leading the ancient satirist Persius to comment: "as his friend laughs, Horace slyly puts his finger on his every fault; once let in, he plays about the heartstrin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the 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 himself. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epithalamia
An epithalamium (; Latin form of Greek ἐπιθαλάμιον ''epithalamion'' from ἐπί ''epi'' "upon," and θάλαμος ''thalamos'' nuptial chamber) is a poem written specifically for the bride on the way to her marital chamber. This form continued in popularity through the history of the classical world; the Roman poet Catullus wrote a famous epithalamium, which was translated from or at least inspired by a now-lost work of Sappho. According to Origen, the Song of Songs might be an epithalamium on the marriage of Solomon with Pharaoh's daughter. History It was originally among the Greeks a song in praise of bride and bridegroom, sung by a number of boys and girls at the door of the nuptial chamber. According to the scholiast on Theocritus, one form was employed at night, and another, to rouse the bride and bridegroom on the following morning. In either case, as was natural, the main burden of the song consisted of invocations of blessing and predictions of happin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antistrophe
Antistrophe ( grc, ἀντιστροφή, "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 a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
