Ode

An elevated lyric of praise or meditation, from Pindar's victory songs to Romantic introspection.

Specifications & Metrics

type

Lyric poetic form

origin

Ancient Greece (7th century BC)

originator

Pindar (epinician); Sappho and Alcaeus (earlier lyric)

meter

Varies: Aeolic metres, irregular (Cowleyan), iambic

Core Principles & Analysis

• Pindar's epinicia for athletic victors defined the choral ode's grandeur.
• Horace's stanzas gave the private, reflective Horatian ode its model.
• Keats's great odes of 1819 made the form central to English Romanticism.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Ode