Ode
Ode (
Classical Greek ) is a form of stately and elaborate
lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three parts - the
strophe, the
antistrophe and the
epode but different forms such as the
homostrophic ode and the
irregular ode exist.
The earliest modern writer to perceive the value of the antique ode was
Ronsard, who attempted with as much energy as he could exercise to recover the fire and volume of Pindar; his principal experiments date from 1550 to 1552. The poets of the
Pleiad recognized in the ode one of the forms of verse with which French
prosody should be enriched, but they went too far in their use of Greek words crudely introduced. The ode, however, died in France almost as rapidly as it had come to life; it hardly survived the 16th century, and neither the examples of J. J.
Rousseau nor of
Saint-Amant nor of
Malherbe possessed much poetic life.
Early in the 19th century the form was resumed, and we have the odes composed between 1817 and 1824 by
Victor Hugo, the philosophical and religious odes of
Lamartine, and the brilliant
Odes funambulesques of
Theodore de Banville (1857).
The golden age of
German ode, both of the Pindaric and the Horatian varieties, is associated with the late 18th century and such writers as
Klopstock and
Schiller, whose
An die Freude (
Ode to Joy) inspired the final movement of
Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony.
The German ode inspired first Russian odes, written by
Mikhail Lomonosov, notably
Morning Meditation on the Greatness of God and
Evening Meditation on the Greatness of God on the occasion of the Northern Lights (1742-44). But the most popular and enduring Russian odes were composed by
Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin during the reign of
Catherine the Great. His ode
On God, often regarded as the greatest piece of 18th-century Russian poetry, was 15 times translated into French and 8 times into German during the poet's lifetime.
The initial model for English odes was
Horace, who used the form to write meditative lyrics on various themes. The earliest odes in the English language, using the word in its strict form, were the magnificent
Epithalamium and
Prothalamium of
Spenser. In the 17th century, the most important original odes in English are those of
Abraham Cowley and
Andrew Marvell. Marvell, in his
Horation Ode on Cromwell's Return from Ireland, used a simple and regular stanza (aabb, two four-foot lines followed by two three-foot lines) modelled on Horace, while Cowley wrote "Pindarick" odes which had irregular patterns of line lengths and rhyme schemes, though they were iambic. The principle of Cowley's Pindaricks was based on a misunderstanding of
Pindar's metrical practice, but was widely imitated, with notable success by
John Dryden.
With Pindar's metre being better understood in the 18th century, the fashion for Pindaric odes faded, though there are notable "actual" Pindaric odes by
Thomas Gray,
The Progress of Poesy and
The Bard. The Pindarick of Cowley was revived around
1800 by
Wordsworth for one of his very finest poems, the
Intimations of Immortality ode; irregular odes were also written by
Coleridge.
Keats and
Shelley wrote odes with regular stanza patterns. Shelley's
Ode to the West Wind, written in fourteen line
terza rima stanzas, is a major poem in the form, but perhaps the greatest odes of the 19th century were written by Keats. After Keats, there have been comparatively few major odes in English. One major exception is the fourth verse of the poem
For the Fallen by
Laurence Binyon which is often known as "The ode to the fallen" or more simply as "The Ode".
A musical setting of a poetic ode is also known as an ode. Horatian odes were frequently set to music in the 16th century, notably by
Ludwig Senfl and
Claude Goudimel. Dryden's "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day" was set by
Handel, and Schiller's
Ode to Joy was used in
Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony. Odes to dignitaries were often set also, such as the
Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne by
Handel.
Byron's
Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte was set by
Arnold Schoenberg.
*
Ode to Billy Joe is a
song by
Bobbie Gentry.
*Ode to my Family is a song by
The Cranberries.
*Ode To Summer is a song by Welsh Alternative Rock band
lostprophets.
