Writing the ode: notes for the class: What is an ode?
An ode is an exalted lyric poem, aiming at loftier thought,
more dignified expression, and more intricate formal structure than most
lyrics. Another characteristic of odes is that they are often addressed to someone
or something.
An ode is a long lyric poem, serious and dignified in
subject, tone, and style, often written to celebrate an event, person, being or
power--or to provide a vehicle for private meditation. Sometimes an ode may
have an elaborate stanza structure. Almost all odes are poems of address, in
which the poet uses apostrophe (repetition of the initial word of thou - a
poetic figure of speech in which inanimate object or absent person is directly
addressed).
The ode was originally a Greek form used in dramatic
poetry, in which a chorus would follow the movements of a dance while singing
the words of the ode. Those odes often celebrated a public occasion of
consequence, such as a military victory. From those ancient Greek beginnings,
the form has descended through the Western culture to appear in English
divested of dance and song.
Irregular odes: they have no set rhyme scheme and no set stanza
pattern.
Activity: discuss the following questions:
- Read
the first stanza and circle two words which you think best describe
autumn.
- Point
out lines in the first stanza which draw pictures in your mind
- Name
at least three things that autumn and the sun are conspiring to do in
stanza 1. How may autumn confuse the bees?
- Cite
three instances in which the spirit of autumn is personified as a farm
girl?
- What
sights are evoked at line 25-26 to picture autumn's beauty? What autumn
sounds are mentioned in the last seven lines of final stanza?
- What
does Keats suggest about autumn's beauty and about cyclic pattern of
nature? Is this poem mainly descriptive, or does the poet intrude his
moods on the poem?
- What
examples of tactile imagery-imagery that appeals to the senses of touch-do
you find in" autumn"?
- What
is the theme of the ode? (ripeness and harvest; nature's cycles)
Follow-up Activities:
- Does
Keat's prefer autumn to the other seasons?
- Read
Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn or Ode to a Nightingale
- What
images-of sound, sight, smell, taste, or touch-have led you on a journal
of the imagination, perhaps back to some remembered past occurrence?
- Think
of a season and write down two words which can best describe the season.
What images do you usually see in this season?
- What
kind of person would you like to compare the season to, and in what
manner? Describe it.
- What
kind of sound do you hear in this season, and make a list of different
sounds and describe who is part of the "orchestra".
Use the above notes
as a source to compose your own ode.
To Autumn by John Keats
1.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
2.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
3.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows*, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
*sallow - willow tree