Another "term" question

[Gup]

Help- I've been blithely using the term "strophe" to describe units or paragraphs of free verse ever since being told that "stanzas" really only refers to metric verse and subsequently seeing "strophe" used in critiques on another board. Ok- so I just get this great reference guide as a gift from His Eminence and Ever Supportive (read that long-suffering-but-ever-patient-husband) and it's saying that "such usage is loose at best."! Aaaagh- what's the right word? Anyone? Thanks in advance, Gup.

[Rachel Lindley]

There isn't one.

"Stanza" can be used to describe a unit of lines separated by from other groups of lines in both free verse and metric verse. A "strophe", from what I've seen, is used mostly in free verse, but doesn't even necessarily have to refer to a "stanza" in free verse, but rather a group of lines addressing one idea or thought, even if the poem has no strophe breaks.

Rachel

[Dunc]

What's clear is that pffa has the usage you speak of, Gup - stanza for regular metrical forms, strophe for the rest.

Macquarie Dictionary 3rd edn 1997
stanza: a group of lines of verse, commonly four or more in number, arranged and repeated according to a fixed plan as regards the number of lines, the metre and the rhyme, and forming a regularly repeated metrical division of a poem.

[The Shorter Oxford 3rd edn and Collins 2nd edn substantially agree with that.]

strophe: 3. (in modern poetry) any separate or extended section in a poem, opposed to the stanza, a group of lines which necessarily repeats a metrical pattern.

[The Shorter Oxford and Collins confine their definitions to Greek and classical prosody.]

Regards / Dunc

[Gup]

Rach, Dunc- Thanks to you both. From both your responses, I assume there's no problem referring to free verse paragraphical units as strophes. Thanks again, Gup

Have attached the offending definition which prompted my question to illustrate where my confusion originated.

"Strophe- (Gr."turn"). Originally, the initial section of a choral ode, as in Cl. Gr. drama, where the chorus chanted the s. while turning toward the altar(turn), followed by the antistrophe(q.v.) of identical metrical structure chanted in accompaniment to a reverse movement (counter-turn), concluded by the epode (q.v.) of different metrical structure, chanted as the chorus stood still (stand.) The Eng. terms (in parentheses in the sentence above) are used in Ben Johnson's Cary-Morison Ode and in Theodore Roethke's "I knew a Woman." Later the term "strophe" was extended to mean a structural division of a poem containing stanzas (q.v.) of varying line-length, esp. odes (q.v.). Hence in poems divided into identical or similar units (such as long narrative or epic poems, or ballads) the term "strophic" is essentially synonymous with "stanzaic"; but poems which comprise only one stanza of a distinct metrical form, such as the sonnet, would normally be called "strophic" but not "stanzaic," the latter term implying responsion (q.v.), i.e. division into a series of repeated units. In modern poetry
the term is occasionally applied to units of free verse and verse paragraphs (qq.v), probably because the original Cl.s was free concerning length or meter, but such usage is loose at best."

Quoted from The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, edited by Preminger, Brogan, Warnke, Hardison and Miner, c 1993

[Dunc]

I take it the part in bold means simply that this particular usage of 'strophe' was still fighting for recognition in 1993. In other words, at that date it mightn't necessarily be wrong. Regards / Dunc

[Gup]

nah- the bold part was just used by me to indicate where my confusion started.

well, my confusion on this particular issue, there's lots more I'm confused about, but we'll save that for another thread.

Gup