by Andria Arnold

The Ode and Personification

The ode is an elaborate, lyric poem of some length. It dates back to the Greek choral songs that were sung and danced at public events and celebrations. The Greek odes of Pindar were arranged in stanzas patterned in sets of three-- a strophe and an antistrophe, which had an identical metrical scheme, and an epode, which had a structure of its own. During the Renaissance the ode was revived in Italy by Gabriello Chiabrera and in France by Ronsard. Ronsard imitated Pindar in odes on public events and Horace, a Roman poet who employed a simpler and more personal lyric form, in more personal odes. In the odes of the 19th-century Romantic poets--Keats, Shelley, Coleridge--tend to be freer in form and subject matter than the classical ode.

Here are the three different ways to write an ode:

1. The Pindaric ode is written in units of three stanzas each, called respectively the strophe, antistrophe, and epode. The chorus moved up one side of the orchestra, chanting the strophe, down the other, chanting the antistrophe, and came to a stop before the audience to chant the epode. The ode continued this way to its end. Modern poets using this form do not write for such performance, but they still use its basic construction. Their first three stanzas usually have rhyme and are constructed with great freedom and variety\; the pattern then repeats these three stanza forms as a unit throughout the poem.

2. The Horatian, or stanzaic, ode is written in a succession of stanzas that follow the pattern of the stanza, which may be in any form. Horace used this form, as did Keats in his "Ode to a Nightingale" and Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind."

3. The irregular ode is a modern invention and has no regular pattern at all; it came about through misunderstanding (by the English poet William Collins) of the Pindaric form. William Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" is perhaps the best-known example.

Personification: The granting of human attributes (form, character, feelings, behavior, etc.) to nonhuman organisms, inanimate objects, or abstract ideas.

Personification is often used to make an abstraction clearer and more real to the reader by defining or explaining the concept in terms of everyday human action. Ideas can be brought to life through personification and objects can be given greater interest.

Personification of the natural world has its own name, "fictio." When this natural world personification is limited to emotion, it is known as "pathetic fallacy."

Humanizing a cold abstraction or even some natural phenomenon gives us a way to understand it, one more way to arrange the world in our own terms, so that we can further comprehend it.

The use of personification is ancient. In Isaiah 14:8, the cypress trees and the cedars of Lebanon rejoice and say, "Since you were laid low, no tree cutter comes up against us." It is also found in Proverbs 1:20, personifying an abstract idea instead of an object: "Wisdom cries aloud in the streets\; in the markets she raises her voice..."

Keats uses this method in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn", by using phrases such as "Sylvan historian," an "unravished bride of quietness," and a "foster-child of silence and slow time."

Shelley also uses personification in his poem "Ode to the West Wind," he calls the wind, "Destroyer and preserver," and telling it, "hear, oh, hear!"

A modern poet who used personification successfully was Robert Frost. In his poem, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," the narrator's horse is personified when "He gives his harness bells a shake/ To ask if there is some mistake."

Remember though, there is a difference between simile and personification. In Frost's poem "Birches," he describes the trunks of trees "arching" and "trailing their leaves on the ground/ like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair/Before them over their heads to dry in the sun." This is a simile because it uses the word like. Be careful and do not confuse the two.

When to use personification:

Use personification when you are trying to depict some aspect or movement that naturally resembles something human or to describe the mind of the narrator of the poem, so that we understand his inner state.

Bad personification will call attention to itself, so be careful. If one does not personify the "natural" movement of an object, be it a horse or trees, it will not suggest the human response necessary.

How to personify:

Use words or phrases that are associated with the mind: seem, suggest, think, feel, wonder, wish, hope, believe, doubt, imagine, and dream.

Change the tense. A switch from the present or past verb tense to the subjunctive mood (3as it were2) or the future tense will have the same affect: They denote a condition that is not fact but it seems so in the poet's mind.

Ask a rhetorical question, an inquiry that includes a personification or in some way unites it with the mind.

Empire:Zine is a production of Spyder's Empire^®. ©All rights reserved. Legal notice.
Contact webmaster@empirezine.com with questions or comments regarding this site.