the.com/ode
a poem so impressed by something it forgets to shut up
means a lyric poem of praise or heartfelt address, usually serious and elevated in tone, written to celebrate a person, thing, or idea.
from From Greek ōidē, a contraction of aoidē, meaning 'song' — rooted in the verb aeidein, 'to sing.' Originally an ode was meant to be sung, often by a chorus, so the word carries the memory of music even when it sits silently on the page. It traveled into Latin as oda and reached English through French ode in the 1500s, by which time the singing had mostly faded into the swelling, melodic ambition of the words themselves. (The same Greek root sings on in 'melody,' 'parody,' and 'rhapsody.')
- greek roots
- comes from aeidein, meaning to sing aloud
- pindar's flex
- ancient odes praised athletes like modern sports anthems
- keats binge
- wrote six legendary odes in a single 1819
- strict shapes
- classical odes followed strophe, antistrophe, and epode
- open invitation
- can glorify anything, even a grecian urn
ode to a nightingale — john keats' 1819 poem, one of the most celebrated in english literature