Political verse
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Political verse (Greek: Politikos stichos, Πολιτικός στίχος), also known as Decapentasyllabic verse (from Greek dekapentasyllabos, δεκαπεντασύλλαβος, lit. '15-syllable') is a metric form in Modern Greek poetry. It is an iambic verse of fifteen syllables and has been the main meter of traditional popular and folk poetry since the Byzantine period. Its name is unrelated to the concept of "politics" and does not imply political content of a poem; rather, it derives from the original meaning of the Greek word πολιτικός, 'civil', meaning that it was originally a form used for secular, non-religious poetry. It is also called “ημαξευμένοι στίχοι” (running-like-a-chariot-on-a-paved-road verses, because the words “flow” freely like a running chariot).
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[edit] History
The political verse flourished from the 9th or 10th century, until the 19th and 20th centuries. It remains in use today, though, mainly by the type of “traditional” folk songs. It is not clear why it was named “political”. Nevertheless, what it is clear, is that the term "political" has nothing to do with "politics". Political also means in Greek "civil". So maybe the verse was named thus because it has been used more widely in secular Greek poetry (in contrast with the religious). In that case "political (civil)" means "common", "secular" or "non religious". Or it could be because it originated from the, Greek medieval “Kingdom of the Romans” (the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire as it is better known today). The “nickname” of the capital of that empire, Constantinopolis, was “Polis” (The City). Hence the term “political” also means “from the Polis” (from Constantinopolis). In any case the term appears as early as in the 11th century, and it had probably been in use earlier. A short "admonitory" poem of Michael Psellos to the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos is titled: ΣΤΙΧΟΙ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΟΙ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΑ ΚΥΡΟΝ ΚΩΝΣΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΝ ΤΟΝ ΜΟΝΟΜΑΧΟΝ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΗΣ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗΣ (Political verses to the king, kyr (master) Constantine Monomachos on Grammar).
[edit] Form
Each verse is a 15-syllable iambic verse, normally (and in accordance with the ancient Greek poetical tradition) the Political verse is without rhyme. So it is a type of blank verse of iambic heptameter. The meter consists of lines made from seven (“hepta”) feet plus an unstressed syllable. There is a standard cesura (pause in the reading of a line of a verse that does not affect the metrical account of the timing) after the eighth syllable. Rhyme occurs only rarely, especially in the earlier folk songs and poems. Later examples, especially in personal poetry and in songwriting there is rhyme.[[1]]. In those cases the rhyme scheme is more commonly that of the couplet: aa, or, aa bb cc dd ...etc.
Each fifteen-syllable verse can be regarded or examined as a "distich" of two verses, one eight-syllable and one seven-syllable. Its form looks as follows:
U - | U - | U - | U - || U - |U - | U - | U
( note that - is a long syllable and U a short syllable)
Until the 14th century, the half-foot could begin with two anapests instead of three iambs (Kambylis, A. 1995. Textkritik und Metrik: Überlegungen zu ihrem Verhältnis zueinander. Byzantinische Zeitschrift 88: 38–67):
U U - | U U - | U - || U - |U - | U - | U
U - | U - | U - | U - || U U - | U U - | U
To this day, each half-foot can also begin with a trochee; this is called choriambic, by comparison to its ancient metrical counterpart.
- U | U - | U - | U - || U - |U - | U - | U
- U | U - | U - | U - || - U |U - | U - | U
[edit] Example
A typical example of the use of Political verse in Greek folk poetry is the beginning of the ballad The Bridge of Arta (Το γεφύρι της Άρτας):
Saránda pénde mástori ki' eksínda mathitádhes
Jofírin ethemélionan stis Ártas to potámi.
Olimerís to chtízane, to vrádhi egremizótan.
[...]('Forty-five master builders and sixty apprentices
were laying the foundations for a bridge over the river of Arta
they would toil a whole day, and at night it would all collapse again.')
[edit] Technique and Structure
The "mechanics" of Political verse is rather straightforward: the verse has a more or less strict form and deviations from it are usually incidental, or the exception than the rule. The structure of each verse follows closely that convention: in the first part of each verse (the first eight syllables) the main theme of the verse is introduced, in the "main clause" of the verse. That It could be a statement, part of a dialogue, or a depiction of some action. Then on the next, seven-syllable, part after the cesura, the main clause is reinforced, or additional information is provided. Either by been explained, or completed, or supplemented, or quite often the theme of the main clause is amplified by been repeated or restated in other words. Political verses are usually, but not exclusively, organized in pairs (thus forming “stanzas” of two lines, known as distichs or couplets). The poem can be as short as a single two-line stanza, or as long as the poet wises. Some of the early narrative poems consist of thousands of lines. In the case of such "distichs" the second verse shows the same structure with the first, except that it isn't introducing the theme of the main clause, but it completes it. Again As it is apparent each one verse and each main clause of the verses are meaningful by themselves, with the second parts of the verses being of an explanatory nature.
[edit] Grammar and Language
The language used with Political verse is of an utilitarian, frugal, type: Nouns, verbs, linking words and pronouns. Adjectives and adverbs are largely absent. That makes the verses much "down-to-earth", and less "pompous". As it is apparent from the description of the "technique" behind the political verse, each verse is consisted of a main clause and something like a non-defining (non-restrictive) relative clause.
[edit] Ethos[[2]]: mood and feeling
Political verses when recited for long can be rather monotonous to a modern audience. That is because their form is strict and does not vary greatly from verse to verse. Always the same meter of fifteen-syllable iambic verses, with the cesura after the eighth syllable, on and on. Maybe that is why the Political verses do not regularly identify with rhyme. Regular rhyme can only make their recitation duller and more monotonous. It is true that sometimes the cesura is not after the eighth syllable, or there is no cesura at all. That can give some variation to the general rhythm of the poem. Such cases are the exception rather than the rule, and do not seem to be there to provide variation. They seem incidental, or unavoidable, especially in the case of the old narrative "epic" poems. Yet, the main use of Political verse is not for poems to be recited, but for songs to be sung, and in most cases danced as well. The "monotony" of the recitation, then, disappears in the music and dance, and in that help the movements of the bodies and the musical prosody (in singing some syllables become long, others are short). Also, in the case of narrative poems which are the most likely to be recited, the main focus is on their content, the events they narrate. And thus the monotony of the rhythm of the meter is taken aside, by the interest to the story. Moreover the monotonus meter can assist memorization. Originally the political verse was a part of an oral poetical tradition, of a largely illiterate medieval society, that found in them an almost natural way to express itself, in such "down-to-earth", and less "pompous" verses.
[edit] Use
It seems that the Political verse was used in folk and personal (lyric) poetry alike. For every kind of poems. Love poems, laments, epigrams, admonitory (didactic) and narrative poems. Nowadays the most familiar to us use of Political verses is in medieval long narrative “heroic” or "epic" poems, the Acritic songs epics were, and in traditional folk songs. Political verses are found in the Byzantine romance novels after the 12th century, and also in the, usually “spooky”, “paraloges” (a type of narrative Greek folk tales in a song form, comparable with the European Folk Ballad, with a paranormal or macabre content, made of few tens or few hundred lines) like "The Dead Brother's song"[[3]] and throughout in most traditional Greek folk songs, to the present day Greek popular songs.
[edit] Analogies in English poetry
In English poetry the type of meter that resembles, somehow, this Greek Political verse is the one called “iambic heptameter” or a “fourteener”. Such verses can be found in the English poetry, mainly of the 16th century but in other cases as well. An early example is the first translation into English of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” (1567) - credited to Arthur Golding. For example (from Book 2, THE SECONDE BOOKE OF OVIDS METAMORPHOSIS):
The Princely Pallace of the Sunne stood gorgeous to beholde
On stately Pillars builded high of yellow burnisht golde,
Beset with sparckling Carbuncles that like to fire did shine.
Another, later, example is from Lord Byron's Youth and Age:
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe,
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.
But in the English poetry each line usually has fourteen syllables (as the English term imply) whereas in Greek poetry the fifteen syllable line is the norm of the Political verse.
[edit] Importance
The Political verse characterizes the traditional Greek poetry, especially between 1100 and 1850. It is considered that the political verse replaced, in popularity and also in use, the famous dactylic hexameter of the ancient Greeks (also known as "heroic hexameter") in the later Greek poetry, from the time of the early modern Greek. This metric form comes almost as “natural” in modern Greek (that is the common Greek, spoken after the 9th or 10th century to the present day), and it is extremely easy to form a “poem” or a “distich” in political verse, almost without a thought. In fact it is such a natural meter for the language that one can actually form continually ones' everyday speech in political verse - if one wises so.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Babette Deutsch, Poetry Handbook. A dictionary of terms. Fletcher & Son Ltd. Norwich. 1957-1962. SBN 224 61021 X.
