Like much poetry in the English language, an ode is a lyric poem, meaning it expresses the thoughts of the poet or an invented character. But it is a particularly useful type of lyric poem. Carol Maddison in Apollo and the Nine (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1960) summarises the characteristics of the ode: “a certain amount of formality…a presumed audience, an sense of responsibility on the part of the poet, and imagery that relates the immediate subject to a larger context…” Here’s why you should include odes on your poetry reading list.
History
The ode, as one of the oldest poetry genres, is part of the “western” literary heritage. From the poems of Pindar (born 518 BC), praising the athlete heroes of Greek games, through the measured stanzas of the Roman Horace, the ode evolved through the medieval period to the Renaissance. Then, according to Maddison, the form managed to survive the counter-reform because it was not regarded as frivolous, and could “flourish almost alone as the only lyric tolerated for the best part of two hundred years”. English odes developed in the 17th century, in the beginning through imitating French and Italian work.
Access to Other Worlds
As a poem with an intended audience, the ode can provide the reader with a sense of the times and environment of the writer. T.S. Eliot in On Poetry and Poets (London: Faber and Faber, 1957) notes that Pindar’s odes had a conspicuous social function. Religious in intent, they were written in a complex structure to be performed by a chorus. Maddison observes that the sharp imagery of Pindar’s odes is all about gold, silver, sound and glowing light. “Pindar was interested only in the heroic, aristocratic and divine, in glory, happiness and prosperity”.
Reading the Best
In tracing the development of English odes prior to the Romantic period, Maddison has special praise for particular works by Ben Jonson (1572-73) and a young John Milton. Jonson’s rational style, more Horace than Pindar, produced To the Memory of my Beloved, the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare: and what he hath left us”. Maddison describes this tribute as “one of the ablest pieces of criticism by a contemporary that exists.” Milton’s 1629 On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity (rich in learning from philosophy, literature, the ancient religions, art and the natural world), the critic describes as “the greatest ode in the English language”.
A Versatile Form
According to Chris Baldick’s Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), Pindar’s difficult strophe, antistrophe and epode form of the ode has been mastered by relatively few English poets. A looser form, irregular in shape, has been more common (for example, Ode: Intimations of Immortality [1807] by William Wordsworth).
The regular-stanza style of Horace has proven more accessible. Modern New Zealand poet Ian Wedde’s The Commonplace Odes (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001) are inspired by the ancient Roman, who described his work as “like the humble bee, painstakingly/Seeking to find the honey in the thyme” (David Ferry translation). Perhaps the most famous odes written in “homostrophic” or Horace-style stanzas are John Keats’ Odes on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale.
Like other poetic forms the ode has continued to evolve. Some facts about the modern ode, and how a present-day poet might tackle writing one, are available in the Suite 101 article How To Write an Ode.
