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Definition: hymn from Philip's Encyclopedia

Song of praise or gratitude to a god or hero. The oldest forms are found in ancient Egyptian and Greek writings and in the Old Testament psalms of rejoicing. In strict Christian church usage, hymns are religious songs sung by the choir and congregation in a church, distinct from a psalm or a canticle. Hymns, both old and new, are now regular features of church services.

hymn

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
song of praise, devotion, or thanksgiving, especially of a religious character (see also cantata ). Early Christian hymnody consisted mainly of the Psalms and the great canticles Nunc dimittis, Magnificat , and Benedictus from the Bible and of the Sanctus, Gloria in excelsis, and Te Deum. These were chanted in unison (see plainsong ). Metrical Latin hymnody began with the hymns of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, and St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, in the 4th cent. This type of hymn, usually four-line stanzas in iambic tetrameter, was the basis of nearly all Christian hymnody until the 16th cent. Notable Latin hymns are Corde natus ex parentis by Prudentius in the 4th cent., and Fortunatus' 6th-century processionals, Vexilla regis and Pange lingua (whose meter was imitated in the Pange lingua of St. Thomas Aquinas ). From the 11th cent. came Wipo's Easter sequence, Victimae paschali laudes. The Dies irae , probably by Thomas of Celano , and the Stabat Mater dolorosa by Jacopone da Todi…
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Full text Article HYMN.

From The Princeton Handbook of Poetic Terms
An ancient Gr. liturgical and literary genre that assimilates Near-Eastern and specifically Heb. trad. in the Septuagint trans. (LXX) of the OT, the hymn was introduced into Christian trad. in the Gr. NT and the Lat. Vulgate Bible and by the Gr. and Lat. fathers, and has continued to flourish in…
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Full text Article hymn

From The Columbia Encyclopedia
song of praise, devotion, or thanksgiving, especially of a religious character (see also cantata ). Early Christian hymnody consisted mainly of the Psalms and the great canticles Nunc dimittis, Magnificat , and Benedictus from the Bible and of the Sanctus, Gloria in excelsis, and Te Deum. These were…
| 614 words
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Full text Article hymn

From The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
Song in praise of a deity. Examples include Akhenaton's hymn to the Aton in ancient Egypt, the ancient Greek Orphic hymns, Old Testament psalms, extracts from the New Testament (such as the ‘Ave Maria’), and hymns by the English writers John Bunyan (‘Who Would True Valour See’) and Charles Wesley…
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Full text Article hymn

From Britannica Concise Encyclopedia
Song used in Christian worship, usually sung by the congregation and written in stanzas with rhyme and metre. The term comes from the Greek hymnos (“song of praise”), but songs in honour of God or the gods exist in all civilizations. Christian hymnody grew out of the singing of psalm s in the Temple…
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Full text Article HYMN

From The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics
An ancient Gr. liturgical and literary genre that assimilates Near-Eastern and specifically Heb. trad. in the Septuagint trans. (LXX) of the OT, the hymn was introduced into Christian trad. in the Gr. NT and the Lat. Vulgate Bible and by the Gr. and Lat. fathers, and has continued to flourish in…
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Full text Article HYMNS

From The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales
During the second half of the 19th century, the hymn became an essential part of the Land of Song image which Wales was projecting to the world. In whatsoever country or continent the Welsh gathered, the singing of hymns became a collective expression of their identity as a people. Indeed, the…
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Full text Article hymn

From The New Penguin Dictionary of Music
Sacred song to non-scriptural words, in metrical strophes and with a simple melody inviting universal participation. Some of the earliest hymns (including ‘Deus Creator omnium’) had words by St Ambrose, the late 4thcentury patriarch of Milan, and entered the liturgy. So did others from the next half…
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Full text Article hymns.

From The Oxford Companion to British History
In the sense in which most people understand the word, hymns are overwhelmingly a product of the 18th cent. They have been described as sacred poetry set to music, and have always been part of the Christian tradition, and the Jewish from which it derived. The psalms and specially composed sacred…
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Full text Article HYMN - HYMNOLOGY

From Encyclopedia of Ancient Christianity
Two texts from the Pauline Epistles (Eph 5:19 [18] and Col 3:16) seem to attest well that the senses are equivalent, whether proper or figurative, of the three terms concerning ancient liturgical chant, namely, “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs [the Greek text has ō dais] .” It is clearly…
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Full text Article HOMERIC HYMNS

From A Dictionary of Classical Greek Quotations
8th-6th century bc Hexameter compositions 1 ούδέ τις άθανάτων ούδε θνητών άνθρώπων ήκουσεν φωνής, ούδ’ άγλαόκαρποι έλαίαι No god nor mortal heard her cry, nor did the bright-berried olives. Translated by C.A. Trypanis (1971) Hymn to Demeter 2.22 of Persephone being abducted to the Underworld 2 οφρα…
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