Antispast
Antispast ( Greek ἀντίσπαστος antispastos "reluctant") is a verse foot according to the scheme in ancient verse
- ◡ —— ◡
Here bezeichnet denotes a short and - a long syllable. An antispast therefore consists of an iambus (◡—) followed by a trochaeus (—◡).
Johannes Minckwitz describes this foot of verse in the context of German language and poetry as follows: "Because this foot is made up of oppositely stressed limbs, it breaks into itself, as it were, and is reluctant to walk", and later: "This foot therefore appears to follow its nature destined to reveal the struggle and struggle of the soul, the conflict and resistance; what is painful and arouses lament flows through this form like a river over rocks. "
In fact, this is how the antispaste has been used. An example is a stanza developed by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock for his Messiah , which has other, closely related verse feet as verse feet in addition to the antispast:
- ◡◡ —— ◡ˌ◡ —— ◡◡ —— ◡
- ——◡ˌ◡ —— ◡ˌ◡ ——— ◡
- ◡◡ —— ◡ˌ◡ —— ◡ ——— ◡
- ◡ —— ◡ˌ◡ —— ◡ˌ◡ ——— ◠
O the voice of fear, which, calling from the abyss,
sounded dull from clouds of dust to light!
And now, dying, still more cruelly, silent, more terrible,
mute, frightened, than falling down she exclaimed lamentation!
The antispast arises especially at the end of the choljambus , when its last foot is realized as a trochaeus. It also occurs occasionally in meter measures in which two long syllables (ancient poetry) or two accents (German poetry) follow one another, such as the pentameter :
- - ◡◡ ˌ— ◡◡ ˌ— ‖ —◡◡ˌ — ◡◡ˌ ◠
An example is given by a Distichon Eduard Mörike :
To a preacher
dear! To put it in confidence:
Your devotion woos with ambition ; you have horns and Satanas laughs.
In the second verse of the distich, the pentameter, "you wear a horn" forms an antispast; certainly a mild form of Minckwitz's "wrestling and fighting of the soul". Another example is the great Asklepiadeus :
- ——ˌ — ◡◡ — ˌ — ◡◡ — ˌ — ◡◡ — ˌ◡ ◠
No, Tobackus! your burnt offering never desecrates lavish iniquity!
In this example from the Tobacksode of Johann Heinrich Voss is "your burnt offering" the anti Past.
literature
- Hans-Heinrich Hellmuth: Metric invention and metric theory at Klopstock. Fink, Munich 1973.
- Otto Knörrich: Lexicon of lyrical forms (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 479). 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-47902-8 , p. 14.
- Gero von Wilpert : Subject dictionary of literature. 8th edition Kröner, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-520-84601-3 , p. 34f.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johannes Minckwitz: Textbook of the rhythmic painting of the German language. Arnoldische Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1856, p. 37.