- Epode
Epode, in verse, is the third part of an
ode , which followed thestrophe and theantistrophe , and completed the movement.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 inGreece , and a new form, the epode-song, came into existence. It consisted of a verse of trimeter iambic, followed by a dimeter iambic, 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 a firm place in choral poetry, which it lost when that branch of literature declined. But it extended beyond the ode, and in the early dramatists we find numerous examples of monologues and dialogues framed on the epodical system. In
Latin poetry the epode was cultivated, in consciousarchaism , both as a part of the ode and as an independent branch of poetry. Of the former class, the epithalamia ofCatullus , founded on an imitation ofPindar , present us with examples of strophe, antistrophe and epode; and it has been observed that the celebrated ode ofHorace , beginning "Quem virum aut heroa lyra vel acri", possesses this triple character.Epodes of Horace
The word is now mainly familiar from an experiment of
Horace in the second class, for he entitled his fifth book of odes "Epodon liber" or theBook of Epodes . He says in the course of these poems, that in composing them he was introducing a new form, at least in Latin literature, and that he was imitating the effect of the iambic distichs invented by Archilochus. Accordingly, we find the first ten of these epodes composed in alternate verses ofiambic trimeter andiambic dimeter , thus::"At o Deorum quicquid in caelo regit Terras et humanum genus;"
In the seven remaining epodes Horace diversified the measures, while retaining the general character of the distich. This group of poems belongs mostly to the early youth of the poet, and displays a truculence and a controversial heat which are absent from his more mature writings. As he was imitating Archilochus in form, he believed himself justified, no doubt, in repeating the sarcastic violence of his fierce model. The curious thing is that these particular poems of Horace, which are really short lyrical satires, have appropriated almost exclusively the name of epodes, although they bear little enough resemblance to the epode of
early Greek literature .References
*1911
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