The Ode

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:

1. Read the first stanza and circle two words which you think best describe autumn.
2. Point out lines in the first stanza which draw pictures in your mind
3. Name at least three things that autumn and the sun are conspiring to do in stanza 1. How may autumn confuse the bees?
4. Cite three instances in which the spirit of autumn is personified as a farm girl?
5. 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?
6. 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?
7. What examples of tactile imagery-imagery that appeals to the senses of touch-do you find in" autumn"?
8. What is the theme of the ode? (ripeness and harvest; nature's cycles)

Follow-up Activities:

1. Does Keat's prefer autumn to the other seasons?
2. Read Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn or Ode to a Nightingale
3. 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?
4. Think of a season and write down two words which can best describe the season. What images do you usually see in this season?
5. What kind of person would you like to compare the season to, and in what manner? Describe it.
6. 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 

Relationships

3. Compare and Contrast “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke to “American Primitive” by William Jay Smith. Look for comparisons in structure and theme and in tone. The tone may help you to identify the respective relationships between the narrator’s and their fathers.
 

My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke

 

The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.

 

 

American Primitive William Jay Smith

Look at him there in his stovepipe hat,
His high-top shoes, and his handsome collar;
Only my Daddy could look like that,
And I love my Daddy like he loves his Dollar.

The screen door bangs, and it sounds so funny--
There he is in a shower of gold;
His pockets are stuffed with folding money,
His lips are blue, and his hands feel cold.

He hangs in the hall by his black cravat,
The ladies faint, and the children holler:
Only my Daddy could look like that,
And I love my Daddy like he loves his Dollar.

 

Write a poem that relects a relationship you have to a significant other. Be sure to create setting by placing your subject in a definable space and time.

The Ballad

Having listened to "Cat's in the Cradle" and having read "The Highwayman" we should now have an understanding of what a ballad is: a poem that tells a story is a ballad.

Compose in a few stanzas (possibly 4 line stanzas of rhyming couplets, or maybe interlocking rhyme).

Can't think of what to write? Try getting a picture to stimulate your creativity. Choose a topic you are interested in - horse riding? hockey? heroes?

 

The old soldier suantered in

Took out his pen

Scribbled on the page,

Like a wizened sage

 

He'd soon recall his manly conflict

Of drawn sword as a loyal subject

And a youth worth living

Of constant giving

 

To country and to king

With praise he'd sing

As a valiant knight

He'd fought for right

 

And then the country was overthrown

Democracy replaced the crown

And all his battles fought

He realized were for naught.