Mock stanza
The division of a poem into pseudo-stanzas is used in verse theory when a grouping of verses into sections (of equal length) gives the impression of a strophic structure, but these stanzas lack the usual characteristics of the stanza , namely repetition ( responsion ) tonal or rhythmic Characteristics in corresponding places, i.e. a repetition of similar rhyming sequences or metrical agreement of corresponding verses.
The first "stanzas" of the free rhythms of the poem The Great Alleluia by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock can serve as an example :
Glory be to the Most Exalted, the First, the Father of Creation!
Our Psalms stammer,
although the wonderful He is
ineffable and unthinkable.
A flame from the altar by the throne
Has streamed into our souls!
We rejoice in heavenly joys,
that we are, and that we can be astonished at him!
Honor him also from us at the graves here,
Although on his throne the last steps of the
archangel's crown, thrown down,
And his song of praise resounds.
If one examines the stanzas comparatively, one finds that there are no metrical similarities in the corresponding verses. The fact that it is not a purely formal grouping of four verses each, but that there are correspondences, is again typical and is shown in the example, among other things, by the repetition of the introductory words "Ehre sey" ( anaphor ). This repetition is interrupted in the second stanza, but then continued.
At the same time, ungramatic commas appear, for example in the fourth verse, which are to be read here as phrasing marks and indicate a pause corresponding to the closure, so that the first group can actually be read as:
Glory be to the Most Exalted, the First, the Father of Creation!
Stammer our Psalms,
although the wonderful He is
inexpressible
and unthinkable.
Such a structure would produce false stanzas of unequal length.
literature
- Alfred Behrmann : Introduction to the newer German verse. From Luther to the present. Metzler, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-476-00651-4 , p. 105 f.