|
Anastrophe is a figure of speech involving an inversion of the natural order of words; for example, saying "echoed the hills" to mean "the hills echoed".
Anastrophe is common in Greek and Latin poetry. For example, in the first line of the Æneid:
- Arma virumque cano, Troiæ qui primus ab oris
- ("I sing of arms and the man, who first from the shores of Troy")
the genitive case noun Troiæ ("of Troy") has been separated from the noun it governs (oris, "shores") in a way that would be rather unusual in Latin prose. In fact, given the liberty of Latin word order, "of Troy" might be taken to modify "arms" or "the man", but it is not the custom to interpret the word that way.
Anastrophe also occurs in English poetry. For example, in the third verse of Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
- He holds him with his skinny hand,
- "There was a ship," quoth he.
- "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
- Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
the word order of "his hand dropt he" is not the customary word order in English, even in the archaic English that Coleridge seeks to imitate. However, excessive use of the device, especially for the sake of rhyme or metre, is usually considered a flaw; consider the clumsy versification of Sternhold and Hopkins's metrical psalter:
- The earth is all the Lord's, with all
- her store and furniture;
- Yea, his is all the work, and all
- that therein doth endure:
- For he hath fastly founded it
- above the seas to stand,
- And placed below the liquid floods,
- to flow beneath the land.
However, some poets have a style that depends on heavy use of anastrophe. Gerard Manley Hopkins is particularly identified with the device:
- Hope holds to Christ the minds own mirror out
- To take His lovely likeness more and more.
Source: public domain 1913 Webster's Dictionary
|
