Pl. strophes, strophæ. 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 άντιστροφή, ‘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. Or Tragedy, The Measure of Verse us’d in the Chorus is of all sorts,… without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe or Epod.
1755. Gray, Lett., 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, trans. 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.
