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{{short description|Type of lyric poem}}
{{about|the form of lyrical verse}}
{{Literature}}
{{refimprove|date=January 2025}}
An '''ode''' (from {{langx|grc|ᾠδή|ōidḗ}}) is a type of lyric poetry, with its origins in [[Ancient Greece]]. Odes are elaborately structured [[poems]] praising or glorifying an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the ''[[strophe]]'', the ''[[antistrophe]]'', and the ''[[epode]]''. Different forms such as the ''homostrophic ode'' and the ''irregular ode'' also enter.

Greek odes were originally poetic pieces performed with musical accompaniment. As time passed on, they gradually became known as personal lyrical compositions whether sung (with or without musical instruments) or merely recited (always with accompaniment). The primary instruments used were the [[aulos]] and the [[lyre]] (the latter was the most revered instrument to the [[ancient Greeks]]).

There are three typical forms of odes: the Pindaric, Horatian, and irregular. Pindaric odes follow the form and style of [[Pindar]]. Horatian odes follow conventions of [[Horace]]; the [[Odes (Horace)|odes of Horace]] deliberately imitated the Greek lyricists such as [[Alcaeus of Mytilene|Alcaeus]] and [[Anacreon]]. Irregular odes use rhyme, but not the three-part form of the Pindaric ode, nor the two- or four-line [[stanza]] of the Horatian ode. The ode is a lyric poem. It conveys exalted and inspired emotions. It is a lyric in an elaborate form, expressed in a language that is imaginative, dignified and sincere.

== Structure ==
=== Pindaric Odes ===
Pindaric odes, also called Greek odes, follow the form and style of the Ancient Greek poet [[Pindar]]. These employ a tripartite structure, consisting of the ''[[strophe]]'', the ''[[antistrophe]]'', and the ''[[epode]]''.

In Ancient Greece, odes were typically performed on a stage to musical accompaniment. The chorus (or performers of the ode) would deliver the strophe from one side of the stage, then move to the opposite side to deliver the antistrophe, and finally to centerstage for the epode.

This reflects the three-part nature of the ode: the strophe sets up a theme, the antistrophe balances it with a contrary perspective, and the epode summarises.

Pindaric odes do not follow strict metrical conventions, meaning they are often irregular in their rhyme and line length. However, the strophe and antistrophe are typically identical in structure, with the epode varying the form.

[[William Wordsworth|William Wordsworth's]] ''[[Ode: Intimations of Immortality|Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood]]'' (1807) and [[Thomas Gray|Thomas Gray's]] ''The Progress of Poesy:'' ''A Pindaric Ode'' (1757) are both written in the Pindaric style. 

Gray's ''[[The Bard (poem)|The Bard: A Pindaric Ode]]'' (1757) is a Pindaric ode where the three-part structure is thrice repeated, yielding a longer poem of nine [[Stanza|stanzas]].

=== Horatian Odes ===
Horatian odes, sometimes called homostrophic odes, follow the conventions of the Roman poet [[Horace]]. Unlike the Pindaric ode, the Horatian ode is made up of any number of stanzas (usually [[Quatrain|quatrains]]) which all follow the same [[rhyme scheme]] and [[Metre (poetry)|metre]]. 

In contrast with the very formal [[panegyric]] style of many of Pindar's odes, Horatian odes often tackle more intimate subjects, such as love and friendship, and were not written for public performance.

Some of the most renowned Horatian [[John Keats's 1819 odes|odes]] were written by English [[Romantic poetry|Romantic]] poet [[John Keats]], most famously ''[[Ode to a Nightingale]]'' (1819).

=== Irregular Odes ===
Irregular odes further break down the ode's formal conventions. They are sometimes called Cowleyan odes after the English [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] poet [[Abraham Cowley]], who revived the form in England with his publication of fifteen ''Pindarique Odes'' in 1656. Though this title derives from Pindar, it is a misunderstanding of the Pindaric ode on Cowley's part. In fact, Cowley's odes are very different from the strictly formal Pindaric ode.

In Cowley's poetry, the ode follows an [[Iamb (foot)|iambic]] metre, but employs no regular rhyme or line length.

The 'pindarique' was employed by [[John Milton]] in the chorus of his lyrical tragedy, [[Samson Agonistes]] (1670/71). However, he corrects Cowley's misunderstanding of the form as Pindaric in his 'Preface':

: "''The measure of verse used in the chorus is of all sorts, called by the Greeks 'monostrophic', or rather 'apolelymenon', without regard had to strophe, antistrophe or epode, which were a kind of stanzas framed only for the music, then used with the chorus that sung; not essential to the poem and therefore not material; or, being divided into stanzas or pauses, they may be called 'alloeostropha'."''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Milton |first=John |title=Milton: Poetical Works |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1966 |editor-last=Bush |editor-first=Douglas |location=Oxford |pages=518}}</ref>

==English ode==

The lyrics can be on various themes. The earliest odes in the English language, using the word in its strict form, were the ''Epithalamium'' and ''Prothalamium'' of [[Edmund Spenser]].<ref>{{EB1911 |last=Gosse |first=Edmund |author-link=Edmund Gosse |wstitle=Ode |volume=20 | pages = 1&ndash;2 |inline=1}}</ref>

In the 17th century, the original odes in English were by [[Abraham Cowley]]. These were [[Iamb (foot)|iambic]], but had irregular line length patterns and rhyme schemes. Cowley based the principle of his [[Pindarics|"Pindariques"]] on an apparent misunderstanding of Pindar's metrical practice but, nonetheless, others widely imitated his style, 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]], [http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=pppo ''The Progress of Poesy''] and [http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=bapo ''The Bard''].

Around 1800, [[William Wordsworth]] revived Cowley's Pindaric for one of his finest poems, the ''[[Ode: Intimations of Immortality|Intimations of Immortality]]'' ode:

<blockquote><poem>
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;—
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more....
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home...
</poem></blockquote>

Others also wrote odes: [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]], [[John Keats]], and [[Percy Bysshe Shelley]] who 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. Among the most celebrated odes of the 19th century are Keats's ''Five Great Odes of 1819'', which included "[[Ode to a Nightingale]]", "[[Ode on Melancholy]]", "[[Ode on a Grecian Urn]]", "[[Ode to Psyche]]", and "[[To Autumn]]". After Keats, there have been comparatively few major odes in English. One major exception is the fourth verse of the poem ''[[Ode of Remembrance|For the Fallen]]'' by [[Laurence Binyon]], which is often known as ''The Ode to the Fallen'', or simply as ''The Ode''.

[[W.H. Auden]] also wrote ''Ode'', one of the most popular poems from his earlier career when he lived in London, in opposition to people's ignorance over the reality of war. In an interview, Auden once stated that he had intended to title the poem ''My Silver Age'' in mockery of England's supposed imperial golden age, however chose ''Ode'' as it seemed to provide a more sensitive exploration of warfare.

''Ode on a Grecian Urn'', while an [[ekphrasis]], also functions as an ode to the artistic beauty the narrator observes. The English ode's most common [[rhyme scheme]] is ABABCDECDE.
Centuries were occasionally set to music. Composers such as [[Henry Purcell|Purcell]], [[Händel]] and [[William Boyce (composer)|Boyce]] all set English odes to music.

==Notable practitioners==
{{div col |colwidth=16em}}
*[[Álvaro de Campos]]
*[[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]
*[[John Donne]]
*[[Thomas Gray]]
*[[Barbara Hamby]]
*[[Horace]]
*[[John Keats]]
*[[Paul Claudel]]
*[[Federico García Lorca]]
*[[Thomas Nashe]]
*[[Pablo Neruda]]
*[[Sharon Olds]]
*[[Ronsard]]
*[[Percy Bysshe Shelley]]
*[[Gary Soto]]
*[[George Sterling]]
*[[Allen Tate]]
*[[William Wordsworth]]
*[[Giosuè Carducci]]
{{div col end}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Poetry}}
*[[Epinikion]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{Wikisource|has=a category for texts of odes|Category:Odes|nocat=yes}}
*{{Cite Americana|short=1|wstitle=Ode|year=1920}}
*[https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/wlf/what-ode-definition-and-examples What is an Ode?: Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms]
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[[Category:Ancient Greek theatre]]
[[Category:Poetic forms]]