Read complete books and articles on: Odes

Ode - elaborate and stately lyric poem of some length. The ode dates back to the Greek choral songs that were sung and danced at public events and celebrations. The Greek odes of Pindar, which were modeled on the choral odes of Greek drama, were poems of praise or glorification. They were arranged in stanzas patterned in sets of three—a strophe and an antistrophe, which had an identical metrical scheme, and an epode, which had a structure of its own. The ode of the Roman poets Horace and Catullus employed the simpler and more personal lyric form of Sappho, Anacreon, and Alcaeus (see lyric). The ode in later European literature was conditioned by both the Pindaric and the Horatian forms. During the Renaissance the ode was revived in Italy by Gabriello Chiabrera and in France most successfully by Ronsard. Ronsard imitated Pindar in odes on public events and Horace in more personal odes. Horatian odes also influenced the 17th-century English poets, especially Ben Jonson, Robert Herrick, and Andrew Marvell. Milton's ode "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (1629) shows the influence of Pindar, as do the poems written for public occasions by his contemporary Abraham Cowley. However, the Cowleyan (or irregular) ode, originated by Cowley, disregarded the complicated metrical and stanzaic structure of the Pindaric form and employed freely altering stanzas and varying lines. In general the odes of the 19th-century romantic poets—Keats, Shelley, Coleridge—and of such later poets as Swinburne and Hopkins tend to be much freer in form and subject matter than the classical ode. Notable examples of the three kinds of ode are: Pindaric ode, e.g., Thomas Gray's "The Progress of Poesy"; Horatian ode, e.g., Keats's "To Autumn"; Cowleyan ode, e.g., Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality." Although the ode has been seldom used in the 20th cent., Allen Tate in "Ode on the Confederate Dead" and Wallace Stevens in "The Idea of Order at Key West" made successful, and highly personal, use of the form.

See studies by C. Maddison (1960), G. N. Shuster (1965), R. Shafer (1918, repr. 1966), J. D. Jump (1974), and P. H. Fry (1980).

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13 of the Best Books and Articles on: Odes

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Apollo and the Nine: A History of the Ode » Read Now
by Carol Maddison. 430 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...have shown how the Italian and French odes were created under humanist impulse, how...form. With a detailed analysis of their odes I have left the particular...
2.

The Writing and Reading of Verse (1918) (Chap. XIV "Ode")) » Read Now
by C. E. Andrews. 327 pgs.

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...THE WRITING AND READING OF VERSE THE WRITING AND READING OF VERSE BY C. E. ANDREWS, M.A., PH.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY...
3.

The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Chap. 12 "The Renaissance and Afterwards: Lyric Poetry") » Read Now
by Gilbert Highet. 764 pgs.

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This landmark book explores the ways in which the Greco-Roman tradition has shaped modern European and American literature.
4.

A Survey to Burlesque and Parody in English (1931) (Chap. V "Burlesque of Eighteenth Century Lyric Kinds, and the Rolliad") » Read Now
by George Kitchin. 390 pgs.

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...Ellis. The Rolliad and Probationary Odes. Hospital for Wit , etc. 123...writing. Take rather the parodies of Grays odes. We are told that Gray was discouraged from writing...
5.

Odes of Absorption in the Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century, in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 » Read Now
by Margaret Koehler. 19 pgs.

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6.

"Aesthetics" and the Rise of Lyric in the Eighteenth Century, in Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 » Read Now
by Douglas Lane Patey. 22 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...His and others practice of both greater and lesser odes--of those "Lyric Poems" which, Joseph Trapp wrote in...most Poetical"(3)--initiated that outpouring of musical odes...
7.

The Ancient Classical Drama: A Study in Literary Evolution Intended for Readers in English and in the Original (1898) (Discussion of odes begins on p. 65) » Read Now
by Richard G. Moulton. 480 pgs.

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...highly-wrought description taking such forms as odes, sonnets, hymns,-- the parent of epic...an ode has now become a series of small odes, separated by passages of...
8.

The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature ("Ode" begins on p. 388) » Read Now
by M. C. Howatson. 627 pgs.

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From Achilles's heel to the sword of Damocles, Western culture teems with allusions from the rich heritage of classical literature, and this new edition of The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, the first updating since Sir Paul Harvey's original edition of 1937, provides the key to these...
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From Achilles's heel to the sword of Damocles, Western culture teems with allusions from the rich heritage of classical literature, and this new edition of The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, the first updating since Sir Paul Harvey's original edition of 1937, provides the key to these works and the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations that produced them. Substantially revising the first edition, this volume condenses the findings of the most recent scholarship into highly readable prose and supplies a wealth of background information not found in Harvey's Companion. Indispensable to those studying classical literature in depth, the book will be equally accessible to the non-specialist. All Greek is transliterated, with translations given for all quotations from Greek and Latin. The main focus of the Companion remains the lives and works of the principal authors. Biographical entries offer the essential facts and sift the conjectural evidence, while entries on the major works include discussions of the philosophical dialogues and political speeches and plot summaries of the epic poems and plays. The various literary forms--epic, comedy, tragedy, rhetorical writing--are covered in depth, supplemented by articles on the origins of the Greek and Latin alphabets and languages. The Companion also puts this literature into its societal and historical contexts, including many articles on political, social, and artistic achievements. We learn, for example, about the political climate that produced the great speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero. Orators, statesmen, and generals stalk the pages, and major battles and conquests from the time of Alexander to the fall of Rome are summarized. Articles on contemporary social mores and religious beliefs help explain literary references, while the glories of philosophy, science, and art are celebrated from Cynics to Stoics, astronomy to water-clocks, and flute competitions to vase painting. Helpful maps supplement geographical entries, a chronological table provides an overview of the main historical and literary events, and a systematic set of cross-references links the entries. The breadth and accuracy of this volume will surely make it the standard reference book of its kind for years to come.
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9.

Linguistics and Literary History: Essays in Stylistics (Chap. 5 "Interpretation of an Ode") » Read Now
by Leo Spitzer. 238 pgs.

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10.

A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography (Chap. IX "The Poetical Forms: (II) Kanon") » Read Now
by Egon Wellesz. 474 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, Entire Library
11.

Metaphysical to Augustan: Studies in Tone and Sensibility in the Seventeenth Century (Chap. 4 "Abraham Cowley and the Pindarique Ode") » Read Now
by Geoffrey Walton. 162 pgs.

Collections: Philosophy, Literature, Entire Library
12.

Pindar's Pythian Odes: Essays in Interpretation » Read Now
by R. W. B. Burton. 202 pgs.

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13.

Keats's Odes and Contemporary Criticism » Read Now
by James O' Rourke. 193 pgs.

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James O'Rourke examines the ways in which the modern reception to Keats's major odes reveals the investments made in these poems by successive generations of critical schools, particularly New Criticism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and New Historicism. O'Rourke's reading of the odes locates them...
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James O'Rourke examines the ways in which the modern reception to Keats's major odes reveals the investments made in these poems by successive generations of critical schools, particularly New Criticism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and New Historicism. O'Rourke's reading of the odes locates them within the contexts of literary and cultural history and recovers the innovative force of the poems in a way that speaks to the aesthetics and the politics of the present.
While the themes of Keats's odes are characteristically Romantic, they are also very modern. O'Rourke's analysis shows how such familiar Romantic themes as the pathos of solitude ("Ode to a Nightingale"), the inaccessibility of the past ("Ode on a Grecian Urn"), the excess of melancholia ("Ode on Melancholy"), and the beneficence of nature ("To Autumn") become culturally coded as "female", and he demonstrates how they confront the reader with familiar ideas in surprisingly fresh forms. This original study does much to illuminate what Keats's,most virtuosic work has to say about history, nature, gender, ourselves, and each other.
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