Dattani's Dance Like a Man

ode, ceremonious poem on an occasion of public or private dignity in which personal emotion and general meditation are united. The Greek word ōdē, which has been accepted in most modern European languages, meant a choric song, usually accompanied by a dance. Alcman (7th century bc) originated the strophic arrangement of the ode, which is a rhythmic system composed of two or more lines repeated as a unit; and Stesichorus (7th–6th centuries bc) invented the triadic, or three-part, structure (strophic lines followed by antistrophic lines in the same metre, concluding with a summary line, called an epode, in a different metre) that characterizes the odes of Pindar and Bacchylides. Choral odes were also an integral part of the Greek drama. In Latin the word was not used until about the time of Horace, in the 1st centurybc. His carmina (“songs”), written in stanzas of two or four lines of polished Greek metres, are now universally called odes, although the implication that they were to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre is probably only a literary convention. Both Pindaric and Horatian odeforms were revived during the Renaissance and continued to influence lyric poetry into the 20th century. The first version of Allen Tate’s widely acclaimed “Ode to the Confederate Dead,” for example, was published in 1926.

Pindaric ode, ceremonious poem by or in the manner of Pindar, a Greek professional lyrist of the 5th century bc. Pindar employed the triadic structure attributed to Stesichorus (7th and 6th centuries bc), consisting of a strophe (two or more lines repeated as a unit) followed by a metrically harmonious antistrophe, concluding with a summary line (called an epode) in a different metre. These three parts corresponded to the movement of the chorus to one side of the stage, then to the other, and their pause midstage to deliver the epode.
Although fragments of Pindar’s poems in all of the Classical choral forms are extant, it is the collection of four books of

Bibliography: Horatian ode, short lyric poem written in stanzas of two or four lines in the manner of the 1st-century-bc Latin poet Horace. In contrast to the lofty, heroic odes of the Greek poet Pindar (compare epinicion), most of Horace’s odes are intimate and reflective; they are often addressed to a friend and deal with friendship, love, and the practice of poetry. Horace introduced early Greek lyrics into Latin by adapting Greek metres, regularizing them, and writing his Romanized versions with a discipline that caused some loss of spontaneity and a sense of detachment but produced elegance and dignity. But he cautioned Latin writers not to attempt to emulate Pindar, a task that he likened to Icarus’ presumptuous flight. Horace’s carmina, written in stanzas of two or four lines, are now universally called odes, but they have nothing in common with the passionate brilliance of Pindaric odes. Horace’s tone is generally serious and serene, often touched with irony and melancholy but sometimes with gentle humour. His urbane Epicureanism and personal charm, his aphoristic philosophy and studied perfection won him recognition as Rome’s leading poet after the death of his friend Virgil. In later periods when technical felicity was more highly regarded than imagination and spontaneity, Horace’s odes were prized and imitated. Among the poets of the Pléiade in 16th-century France, Pierre de Ronsard attempted to model his first odes on Pindar. Defeated, he contented himself with being, in his opinion, better than Horace. Nicolas Boileau and Jean de La Fontaine in the 17th century preserved the Horatian tradition. Michael Drayton, in Poems Lyric and Pastoral (1606), acknowledged his indebtedness to Horace, and Andrew Marvell produced one of the finest English Horatian odes in 1650 on Cromwell’s return from Ireland. In the early 18th century, Matthew Prior, Jonathan Swift, and Samuel Johnson revived the Horatian spirit, as did Giacomo Leopardi and Giosuè Carducci in Italy in the 19th century. Since the odes of the Romantic period, which were successful imitations of the manner but not the form of Pindar, few English poets have attempted to return to the classical forms. See also ode. irregular ode, a rhymed ode that employs neither the three-part form of the Pindaric ode nor the two- or four-line stanza that typifies the Horatian ode. It is also characterized by irregularity of verse and stanzaic structure and by lack of correspondence between parts called pseudo-Pindaric ode or Cowleyan ode (after Abraham Cowley).