The Romantic Poets and the Ode
In most required literature courses, students will read at least one novel and some examples of lyric
poetry, often drawn from the Romantic period, which raised the lyric to unprecedented prominence.
Although there are many different species of lyric, most of them apply and/or renovate some set of
conventions, whether derived from classical models or from the lyric types generated in earlier periods of
European and English poetry. Selected for examination here is the ode, because British Romantic poets
perfected a special form of it--"the personal ode of description and passionate meditation," as M. H.
Abrams described it--sometimes called the "Romantic meditative ode."
Origin and Development of the Ode
Traditionally, the ode is lengthy (as lyrics go), serious in subject matter, elevated in its diction and
style, and often elaborate in its stanzaic structure. There were two classical prototypes, one Greek, the
other Roman. The first was established by Pindar, a Greek poet, who modeled his odes on the choral
songs of Greek drama. They were encomiums, i.e., written to give public praise, usually to athletes who
had been successful in the Olympic games. Pindar patterned his complex stanzas in a triad: the strophe
and antistrophe had the same metrical form; the epode had another. What is called in English the regular
or Pindaric ode imitates this pattern; the most famous example is Thomas Gray's "The Progress of Poesy."
As the ode developed in England, from the neo-classical period during the Age of Enlightenment
through the Romantic Era, poets modified the Pindaric form to suit their own purposes and also turned to
Roman models. In 1656, Abraham Cowley introduced the "irregular ode," which imitated the Pindaric
style and retained the serious subject matter, but opted for greater freedom. It abandoned the recurrent
strophic triad and instead permitted each stanza to be individually shaped, resulting in stanzas of varying
line lengths, number of lines, and rhyme scheme. This "irregular" stanzaic structure, which created
different patterns to accord with changes of mood or subject, became a common English tradition. Poets
also turned to an ode form modeled after the Roman poet, Horace. The Horatian ode employed uniform
stanzas, each with the same metrical pattern, and tended generally to be more personal, more meditative,
and more restrained. Keats' "Ode to Autumn" and Wordsworth's "Ode to Duty" are Horatian odes.
The Romantic meditative ode was developed from these varying traditions. It tended to combine the
stanzaic complexity of the irregular ode with the personal meditation of the Horatian ode, usually
dropping the emotional restraint of the Horatian tradition. However, the typical structure of the new form
can best be described, not by traditional stanzaic patterns, but by its development of subject matter. There
are usually three elements:



the description of a particularized outer natural scene;
an extended meditation, which the scene stimulates, and which may be focused on a private
problem or a universal situation or both;
the occurrence of an insight or vision, a resolution or decision, which signals a return to the scene
originally described, but with a new perspective created by the intervening meditation.
Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode," and Shelley's "Ode to
the West Wind," are examples, and Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale," while Horatian in its uniform stanzaic
form, reproduces the architectural format of the meditative soliloquy, or, it may be, intimate colloquy
with a silent auditor.
Adapted from A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of
Literature, ©Brooklyn College. http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/ode.html
Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes
By Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
'Twas on a lofty vase's side,
Where China's gayest art had dyed
The azure flowers, that blow;
Demurest of the tabby kind,
The pensive Selima reclined,
Gazed on the lake below.
Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,
Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,
She saw; and purred applause.
Still had she gazed; but 'midst the tide
Two angel forms were seen to glide,
The genii of the stream:
Their scaly armour's Tyrian hue
Through richest purple to the view
Betrayed a golden gleam.
The hapless nymph with wonder saw:
A whisker first and then a claw,
With many an ardent wish,
She stretched in vain to reach the prize.
What female heart can gold despise?
What cat's averse to fish?
Presumptuous maid! with looks intent
Again she stretched, again she bent,
Nor knew the gulf between.
(Malignant Fate sat by, and smiled)
The slippery verge her feet beguiled,
She tumbled headlong in.
Eight times emerging from the flood
She mewed to every watery god,
Some speedy aid to send.
No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;
Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard.
A favourite has no friend!
From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,
Know, one false step is ne'er retrieved,
And be with caution bold.
Not all that tempts your wandering eyes
And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;
Nor all that glisters gold.
Essay: How does Thomas Gray make his point in the poem Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat,
Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes, through use of allegory? Consider imagery, figurative language,
symbol, meter, allusion and tone.
William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimation of Immortality: http://www.bartleby.com/41/364.html
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ode to the West Wind: http://www.bartleby.com/41/504.html
John Keats, Ode to Autumn: http://www.bartleby.com/41/531.html
John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale: http://www.bartleby.com/41/529.html
John Keats, Ode on Melancholy: http://www.bartleby.com/101/628.html
Pindaric Ode
 Public Praise: Encomium
 Triad stanza form: Strophe, Antistrophe, Epode.
o The strophe and antistrophe stanzas have the same verse format, the epode is different.
Often the ideas of the stanzas follow an argument: thesis, antithesis, synthesis—or other
 Serious
 Longish
 High diction
 Elaborate in use of literary devices

AbrahamCowley: The irregular ode: Same content, varying stanza forms
Horacian Ode
 Uniform stanzas
 Personal
 Meditative
 Restrained passion
Romantic Meditative Ode
 Varying stanza length
 More passionate
 Common presentation of subject matter:
o Scene of nature
o Extended meditation of a personal or universal issue
o Insight and resolution
 Serious
 Longish
 High diction
 Elaborate use of multiple poetic devices
 Usually lyric

Romantic Odes can also be encomiums
English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
531. Ode to Autumn
John Keats (1795–1821)
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-eaves 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’erbrimm’d their clammy cells.
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,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twine´d flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,
While barre´d 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 redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies
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