Odes!

Poems of Celebration

Odes can:

Celebrate Commemorate Meditate on people, events,

or, in Neruda’s case, ordinary objects

It’s not true that all poems are depressing!

Originally…

Formally-structured Written for choruses in Greek plays to sing or

chant

A Brief History of the Ode

Named for Pindar, ancient Greek poet Chorus speaks and moves left, speaks

again and moves right, then finishes with a third response Left = strophe

Same stanza form Right = antistrophe Final response = epode = different form

Pindaric odes were celebratory and heroic

Pindaric Odes

Excerpt from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou, Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

Example:

In the manner of the Roman poet Horace Short lyric poems (lyric poems express

thought or feelings rather than telling a story)

Stanzas of 2 – 4 lines Intimate and reflective, rather than

celebratory and heroic Often addressed to a friend and deal with

friendship, love, and the practice of poetry. 

Horatian Ode

Extract from “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats

(1795-1821)

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains   (A)My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,      (B)Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains            (A)One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:      (B)'Tis not through envy of the happy lot,                  (C)But being too happy in thy happiness,-                 (D)That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,           (E)In some melodious plot                                            (C)Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,   (D)Singest of summer in full-throated ease.              (E)

Example:

Named for Abraham Cowley Used by modern poets such as Neruda Modern odes may be humorous, but still

commemorate the beauty poets find in unexpected places

With the Cowleyan Ode, the ode is freed from formal constraints of rhyme, meter, and stanza pattern

Neruda uses short-lined free verse for his odes

Cowleyan Ode

Listen to Neruda’s Odes…

Ode to the Watermelon

What is he comparing the watermelon to? What is the relationship between the

people and the poem and the watermelon like? Support ideas with text.

How does the poem move, progress, from beginning to end?

How would you define the tone and mood of this poem?

Ode to the Watermelon

Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground

What is different about the form of address

Neruda uses in this poem? How does he address the chestnut? How is this similar to, different from the last poem, and how does the mood of the poem change with this choice?

Where can you find humor in this poem? How does the poem move from beginning

to end? Is the chestnut “just a seed,” or is it more?

Support your ideas with text.

Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground

Ode to the Book (II)

What do you make of this poem?

How is it similar to or different from the others?

What is the book, according to Neruda? List all the attributes of the book and draw a conclusion.

Ode to the Book (II)

Which ode is your favorite and

why? How are these poems similar to

and different from the other poems we’ve read by Neruda so far?

Reflection

Invention: Write and illustrate your own Ode