Editing Antistrophe (section)

== Characteristics ==

=== Usage as a literary device ===
It has the nature of a reply and balances the effect of the [[strophe]]. Thus, in [[Thomas Gray|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 [[John Milton|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".