1. Odes!
Poems of Celebration

2. It’s not true that all poems are depressing!
Odes can:
Celebrate
Commemorate
Meditate on people, events, or, in Neruda’s case, ordinary objects

3. A Brief History of the Ode
Originally…
Formally-structured
Written for choruses in Greek plays to sing or chant

4. Pindaric Odes Named for Pindar, ancient Greek poet
Chorus speaks and moves left, speaks again and moves right, then finishes with a third response
Left = strophe
Same stanza form
Right = antistrophe
Final response = epode = different form
Pindaric odes were celebratory and heroic

5. Example: O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Excerpt from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

6. Horatian Ode In the manner of the Roman poet Horace
Short lyric poems (lyric poems express thought or feelings rather than telling a story)
Stanzas of 2 – 4 lines
Intimate and reflective, rather than celebratory and heroic
Often addressed to a friend and deal with friendship, love, and the practice of poetry. 

7. Example:
Extract from “Ode to a Nightingale” by John Keats ( )
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains   (A) My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,      (B) Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains            (A) One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:      (B) 'Tis not through envy of the happy lot,                  (C) But being too happy in thy happiness,-                 (D) That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,           (E) In some melodious plot                                            (C) Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,   (D) Singest of summer in full-throated ease.              (E)

8. Cowleyan Ode Named for Abraham Cowley
Used by modern poets such as Neruda
Modern odes may be humorous, but still commemorate the beauty poets find in unexpected places
With the Cowleyan Ode, the ode is freed from formal constraints of rhyme, meter, and stanza pattern
Neruda uses short-lined free verse for his odes

9. Listen to Neruda’s Odes…

10. Ode to the Watermelon

11. Ode to the Watermelon What is he comparing the watermelon to?
What is the relationship between the people and the poem and the watermelon like? Support ideas with text.
How does the poem move, progress, from beginning to end?
How would you define the tone and mood of this poem?

12. Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground

13. Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground
What is different about the form of address Neruda uses in this poem? How does he address the chestnut? How is this similar to, different from the last poem, and how does the mood of the poem change with this choice?
Where can you find humor in this poem?
How does the poem move from beginning to end?
Is the chestnut “just a seed,” or is it more? Support your ideas with text.

14. Ode to the Book (II)

15. Ode to the Book (II)
What do you make of this poem? How is it similar to or different from the others?
What is the book, according to Neruda? List all the attributes of the book and draw a conclusion.

16. Reflection Which ode is your favorite and why?
How are these poems similar to and different from the other poems we’ve read by Neruda so far?

17. Invention: Write and illustrate your own Ode