Examples of Odes in Poetry: Types and Famous Poems
Poetry examples of odes date back to ancient Greece and the Greek poet Pindar, who is credited with inventing this form of poetry. The word "ode" comes from the Greek word oide meaning "to sing or chant:" odes were originally performed to music.
Aphrodite statue as poetry examples of odes
Emotional rip currents run through this ancient form of self-expression. Odes are usually written in appreciation or reflection. They are almost always written about a significant event, or someone or something that the poet admires.
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Types of Odes
There are three different types of odes: Pindaric, Horatian, and Irregular. It'll be helpful to be able to identify each form as you soak up the beauty and lyricism found within their stanzas.
Pindaric Ode
Often describe as the greatest lyrical poet, the most lyrical style of ode was named after the master himself. Pindaric odes were meant to be performed with dancers and a chorus, celebrating events like the Olympics. Pindar loved to include mythological allusions in his writing.
Pindaric odes consist of three sections (strophe, antistrophe and epode). The strophe and antistrophe have the same meter and length, while the epode has a different meter and length.
Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, by William Wordsworth, is a good example of a poem in Pindaric style. It begins:
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.
The Horatian ode was named after the Roman poet, Horace. These were usually more thoughtful than a Pindaric ode, meant for personal enjoyment than a stage performance. Their subjects tend to be simple, reflecting on nature, people or abstract concepts.
A Horatian ode usually has a regular stanza pattern - usually 2-4 lines - length and rhyme scheme.
This excerpt from Ode to the Confederate Dead by Allen Tate demonstrates the structure of a Horatian ode.
"Row after row with strict impunity
The headstones yield their names to the element,
The wind whirrs without recollection;
In the riven troughs the splayed leaves
Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament
To the seasonal eternity of death;
Then driven by the fierce scrutiny
Of heaven to their election in the vast breath,
They sough the rumour of mortality."
