Internal Structure

Abstract

Abstract Of the two derivations of the word ‘ stanza’ mentioned in the previous chapter, weshallexplore Wrsttheideaofastanzaasa’ room’ , thatis, a freestanding and internally coherent poetic unit. Many early archaic elegiac fragments do, in fact, seem to be composed in Wve-couplet stanzas, individually marked by thematic or rhetorical coherence but also by poetic devices common to other genres, for example, ring-composition and other forms of repetition that bring the stanza to satisfying closure. Single elegiac stanzas often take one of two recognizable forms with regard to content: (i) an A–B form, which begins with one theme or outlook, but then Wnishes—sometimes after a dramatic twist in the middle of the Wfth line—with another, strongly contrary one; and (ii) an A–B–A form, which begins with one topic (A), shifts to a second (B), whichchallengesorillustratesthe Wrst, andthenreturnstothe Wrst (A) at the veryend ofthe stanza. Elegiac poets also cast otherkindsofrhetorical forms or generic set-pieces in the form of a single stanza. One persistent patternconsistsoffourcoupletsofmeditationfollowedbyasingleoneof exhortation. Set-pieces include the elegiac prayer, which often starts and ends with the name of the deity invoked, and the elegiac catalogue or priamel, which regularly begins with a general gnomic statement and then lists at least three illustrative examples of it.