ode

ode (from Greek, ‘song’), a lyric poem of some length and elevated style on a serious subject. Odes are generally classified as either Pindaric or Horatian, depending upon their stanzaic structure and tone. Horatian odes (see Horace) tend to be meditative, tranquil and colloquial; they are frequently homostrophic, repeating a single stanzaic form, and typically shorter than the more declamatory Pindaric ode. Among the best-known Horatian odes are Marvell's An Horation Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland, and Keats's ‘To Autumn’. Pindaric odes are typically passionate, visionary, and sonorous. Designed to be sung and danced by the Greek chorus either at a public festival or in a theatre, these lyrics were written in complex stanzas which mirror the pattern of the dance. The first outstanding imitation of Pindar was Jonson's ‘To the Immortal Memory…of… Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison’ (1629). The Pindaric ode gained popularity in English with the publication of Cowley's ‘Pindarique Odes’ (1656). In this work and in his original Ode, upon the Blessed Restoration and Return of His Sacred Majesty (1660), Cowley developed the ‘irregular ode’, which abandoned Pindar's stanzaic rules; Dryden's odes, notably ‘Ode in Honour of St Cecilia's Day’ (1687), added to their reputation. Promising the would-be poet a freedom from formal constraints, the irregular ode, with its lofty manner, attracted many writers, but it also became the object of parody, though the 18th cent. produced some fine examples, particularly William Collins's ‘Ode to Liberty’ (1746). Regular Pindaric odes, such as Gray's The Progress of Poesy were comparatively rare. The Romantic poets produced some outstanding odes, including Coleridge's ‘Dejection: an Ode’, Wordsworth's ‘Intimations of Immortality’, Shelley's ‘Ode to the West Wind’, and Keats's ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.