Home › Glossary › Letter C

choral stanza

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A stanza composed for performance by a chorus in Greek drama or lyric, sung by a collective voice rather than an individual; it features structured antiphony and rhythmic interplay for group expression.

Detailed Definition
A choral stanza is a structural unit within a choral poem designed for group recitation or singing, often marked by consistent meter, rhyme, and thematic focus; unlike solo stanzas, choral stanzas frequently employ parallelism, antiphonal patterns, or call-and-response elements to facilitate collective performance and reinforce communal sentiment.
Example
Example in poetry:
Choral stanzas appear in Greek tragedy odes, like Sophocles’ Antigone: “Many wonders, many terrors…”; In Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind,” stanzas function as choral invocations; T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” uses fragmented choral voices in “What the Thunder Said”; W.H. Auden’s “The Sea and the Mirror” employs choral commentary on Shakespearean drama; Contemporary poet Anne Carson’s “Decreation” uses choral stanzas to reinterpret Sappho; Derek Walcott’s “Omeros” adapts Homeric chorus into Caribbean stanzas.
Additional Notes
choral stanza|A stanza (or strophe/antistrophe) spoken or sung by the chorus in classical Greek drama; its meter often contrasts with the dialogue.
Also Known As
stanzaic chorus grouped chorus section divided chant Chorale stanza multi-voice stanza Polyphonic utterance Polyvocal stanza
Skip to main content