{{Short description|Second part of an ode sung by a Greek chorus}} {{About|art form|the use of antistrophe in figures of speech|Epistrophe|the plant genus|Antistrophe (plant)}} {{More footnotes|date=January 2009}}
'''Antistrophe''' ({{langx|grc|ἀντιστροφή}}, "a turning back"<ref>{{Cite web|date=2014-04-30|title=Antistrophe - Definition and Examples of Antistrophe|url=https://literarydevices.net/antistrophe/|access-date=2021-03-28|website=Literary Devices|language=en-US}}</ref>) 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.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Jevons|first=Frank Byron|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zb4oAAAAYAAJ&q=Antistrophe&pg=PA279|title=A History of Greek Literature: from the Earliest Period to the Death of Demosthenes|date=1886|publisher=C. Scribner's sons|language=en}}</ref>
== 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:{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}<ref>{{Cite web|title=Antistrophe {{!}} literature|url=https://www.britannica.com/art/antistrophe|access-date=2021-03-28|website=Encyclopedia Britannica|language=en}}</ref> {{quote|<poem> Man's feeble race what ills await, Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease and Sorrow's weeping Train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate, (etc.) </poem>}}
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".{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}<ref>{{Cite book|last=Rowbotham|first=John Frederick|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mtAqAAAAYAAJ&q=Antistrophe&pg=PA593|title=A History of Music: The music of the elder civilisations and the music of the Greeks (cont'd)|date=1886|publisher=Trübner & Company|language=en}}</ref>
=== Other semantic usage === ''Antistrophe'' was also a kind of ancient dance, wherein dancers stepped sometimes to the right, and sometimes to the left, still doubling their turns or conversions. The motion toward the left, they called ''antistrophe'', from ''ἀντί'', "against", and ''στροφή'', of ''στρέφω'', "I turn".
==References== {{reflist}} '''Attribution:''' *{{EB1911|wstitle=Antistrophe|volume=2|page=146}} *{{1728}} * {{cite book | last = Smyth | first = Herbert Weir | year = 1920 | title = Greek Grammar | publisher = Harvard University Press | location = Cambridge MA | isbn = 0-674-36250-0 | pages = 674}}
{{Greek dances}}
Category:Ancient Greek dances Category:Poetic forms