Ode

An ode is a long, formal and elevated poem addressed to a person, object or idea, written in praise or deep reflection, and speaking to its subject directly.

"Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness". Keats opens "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by speaking straight to a piece of pottery. That address is the heart of an ode: the poem turns toward its subject and talks to it, as if it might answer.

What makes an ode

• A subject worth honouring. It may be a person, a bird, a season, an urn or an idea, and the poem treats it with seriousness.
• Direct address. The speaker talks to the subject, a move called apostrophe.
• Elevated tone. The language is formal and the feeling is large.
• A built shape. Odes are usually long and stanzaic. Keats's odes use ten-line stanzas with a set rhyme pattern.

Three traditions

The Greek Pindaric ode celebrated victors at public games and used a three-part structure. The Horatian ode was quieter and more personal, in even stanzas. The English irregular ode, from Wordsworth and Coleridge onward, lets stanza length and rhyme vary as the thought moves.

Why it matters to a writer or editor

The ode shows how to make attention into drama. A poem that only describes a nightingale is a list. A poem that argues with it, envies it and loses it has a plot of feeling. For an editor, the question is whether the feeling develops. Check that each stanza moves somewhere new, and watch for overreach, since the elevated tone can slide into inflated language that needs the same trimming as purple prose. A related form for loss is the elegy.

Read an example

Read an example: "To Autumn" by John Keats (1819), a public domain poem on Bossfeed, an ode in three stanzas. Byron's Ode on Venice is another.

Frequently asked questions

What are the three kinds of ode?

The Pindaric ode, modelled on the Greek poet Pindar, is public and grand. The Horatian ode, after Horace, is calm and made of regular stanzas. The irregular ode, developed by English Romantic poets, follows the shape of its thought.

Who wrote famous odes?

John Keats wrote 'Ode to a Nightingale' and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'. Shelley wrote 'Ode to the West Wind'. Pablo Neruda wrote a book of odes to everyday things.

How is an ode different from an elegy?

An ode praises or contemplates its subject. An elegy mourns someone or something lost. The two can overlap.