Poetry Examples of Odes - General Nature and Development of Ode Poems

Ode is an elaborated lyric poem praising or glorifying a person, or describing nature realistically rather than emotionally. Such odes were sung and performed to the tune of musical instruments. You'll learn in this article some classic and modern poetry examples of odds.

What Were the Classical Odes?

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Going back to the time of the ancient Greeks, odes were generally classified into two broad categories; Choral odes and Pindar odes. Choral odes were normally sung by one person. Alcaeus, Sappho, Anaceon, and others dealt with this single-voice ode conception in their works.

Choral Odes:

The form of choral ode came into being partly because of the movement of the chorus in Greek drama. It has the structure of three part stanza;
1. the strophe
2. the antistrophe, and
3. the epode

Both the strophe and antistrophe have the similar metrical scheme whereas the epode has a different formation.

Pindar Odes:

Pindar is considered the greatest and most celebrated lyric poet of Greece. His work includes 45 victory odes celebrating the Olympian Games along with other festivals.

After Pindar, Roman poets Horace and Catullus tried their hands on this the single-voice Greek odes of Alcaeus and Sappho. Unlike Pindaric odes, their structure was simpler with more personal style. Their work was meant for declaiming rather than to be sung.

The Development of Modern Odes:

The initial English odes were the "Epithalamion" and the "Prothalamion", the marriage hymns, composed by Edmund Spenser. Other English writers of odes were Ben Jonson and Andrew Marvell, who adopted Horatian style whereas John Milton followed Pindaric style in "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity". Abraham Cowley gave special touch to this form.

After that, the revival of the ode occurred in the 18th century. The writers Alexander Pope and Dryden both wrote odes. William Collins is often considered one of the greatest lyric poets of the age, who wrote lovely nature odes for instance; "To Evening". During the Romantic period, P. B. Shelley composed "Ode to the West Wind", and John Keats composed one of the greatest "Ode on a Grecian Urn".

It was the Victorian time when the popularity of the ode form diminished but in the 20th century, it is revived by the American writer Allan Tate who wrote "Ode on the Confederate Dead".

Poetry Examples of Odes - General Nature and Development of Ode Poems

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