We have all heard of such a genre of literature as an ode. So what is it? What is the history of this genre? Who is considered the ancestor of the ode? What is the theory of the genre? All these questions can be found in this article.
Definition of the concept of "ode"
Oda is an ancient song on any topic, which was performed in ancient Greece in chorus with musical accompaniment. Later, they began to call this a laudatory verse dedicated to the glorification of important historical events or prominent persons. Sometimes the ode celebrates majestic natural phenomena. The style of such works is especially solemn, it is sustained in a sublime spirit with elements of pathos.
Translated from the ancient Greek ώδή (oide), ode is a song. Distinguished between laudatory, dance and deplorable.
V. Dombrovsky, for example, defined the concept as follows: “The word " ode "is in the Greek language the same as our" song. "But not every song is an ode; this is the name usually used for a song in which a poet, touched by something lofty, unusual and worthy of surprise, an object with which universal , national or public interests, expresses his feelings with a fiery word, taken into all the means of picturesqueness, expression and melody. "
Signs of an ode
An outstanding feature of the ode is a high spirits, a bold, uncontrollable flight of fantasy, an ardent feeling of inspiration and a poetic form of expression adapted to this. The themes for glorification and exaltation are taken by a song of praise from the sphere of high ideals, impulses, desires and competitions of a person. The will, the advancement of humanity, love for the native land, the struggle for the realization of high cliques of freedom, truth and brotherhood in life, ideal intentions and competitions, heroic deeds and deeds, the invincible power of a song - all this can give rise to an uplifting spirit. And all this can be glorified in ode.
History
Oda is a genre of literature, the founder of which was the ancient Greek poet Pindar (IV century BC), who was the author of a number of songs of praise in honor of the gods, the victories of the Greeks in wars and at the Olympic Games. His poems of praise had a strict metric form and composition (stanza - antistrophe - epod). The Roman lyricist Horace, who lived in the 4th century BC, composed odes in honor of Venus, Bacchus, and also the emperor Augustus Octavian. During the Renaissance, the Frenchman P. Ronsard (mid-16th century) became the most famous ode composer. His odes glorified nature, which brought joy and peace to people ("To Bellera's Stream"). Some of Ronsard's odes were written in honor of love. This is an ode to a woman (“My friend, they took me to live more comfortably”).
Ode genre theory
Oda is a genre that has developed alongside panegyric works, primarily a hymn and praises. These works were to be accompanied by playing musical instruments (harp, cithara, etc.) and dancing.
The ode acquired the canonical genre structure of the work, in which civil motives clearly dominate, in the work of Malerba, one of the founders of French classicism. Malerba's odes (early 17th century) defended the inviolability of the principles of absolutist statehood, praised the monarch and his relatives, high dignitaries and commanders.
The song of praise received its theoretical substantiation in the poetic treatise by N. Boileau "Poetic Art". Along with tragedy, ode is a literary genre that was ranked among the highest. N. Boileau formulated the rules for writing odes concerning language, metrics, general poetic tonality. Compositionally, the song of praise begins with a solo, followed by an exposition of "noble and important matter", which includes various episodes, and digressions, and the so-called lyrical disorder (the poet's "jumping" from one motive to another), and the ode ends with an ending. According to N. Boileau, the ode was able to touch the imagination of the reader with its state solemnity.
Prominent odographers in the literature of the 18th century were M.J. Chenier, Lebrun-Pindard (France), Klopstock, Schiller (Germany), Lomonosov, Kantemir, Trediakovsky (Russia). The latter introduced the term "ode" in Russian poetry. In the era of romanticism, the song of praise occupied a significant place in the works of Byron ("Ode to the authors of the bill against the destroyers of machine tools"), Shelley, Kuchelbecker.
In the literature of the 20th century, the ode is extremely rare. As examples it is worth recalling "Ode to the Library" by S. Kryzhanovsky, his cycle "Odes" ("Ode in honor of the tree", "Ode to man", "Ode to speed"), "Ode to the human language" by I. Muratov, "Ode to revolution "V. Mayakovsky," Ode to conscience "by I. Drach.
Ancient Greece is famous for its great literature, architecture, sculpture and other art forms. Since ancient times, people have given great preference to lyrics, which are often accompanied by music. Today, not all of us know what an ode is, but more than once we have heard a solemn poem performed by popular authors. In such he was revered and seemed to be the pinnacle of art. For the local population, the ode was a choral song with its inherent pomp and solemnity. Quite often you could hear it at competitions, for example, in honor of the winner.
Among the Romans, the most famous writer was Horace. He skillfully expressed all feelings and emotions, and also used elements of Aeolian poetry in his works. The writer created a whole collection of odes, which at that time were called "songs". Horace skillfully adapted all his works to the Latin language and used Alkeev's stanza. That is why ode, songs had practically the same meaning for people. Later, they began to be called "lyrical works", which were created in a high style using antique paragraphs.
Work in Russia
The verse (ode) was considered the most amazing creation. At the time of the birth of Russian literature, many writers tried to bring it to life. These include M.V. Lomonosov, A.S. Pushkin, N. Nekrasov and many others. These were mainly poems dedicated to the queen, lovers, life. There is a very simple answer to the question of what an ode is: a genre of lyrics, a solemn poem dedicated to someone or some event. The style of presentation is very melodic, enthusiastic, delighted.
The history of the development of the ode
Types of poem
Very often, poems were of a solemn genre, but there are also moral, spiritual and love songs. Each of them is aimed at achieving a certain result, that is, the reader or listener must experience certain emotions. Thus, the poet, as it were, directs a person to the true path or tries to convey his feelings to him. At one time, the most popular were considered odes to their beloved. Of course, such verses were intended only for one listener (reader) - the chosen one, the lady of the heart. They were written with such feelings and love that, it was assumed, they could melt the ice in a person's soul or make him forgive all insults. Nowadays, odes are very rare, but they are just as significant. Of course, the poems created before our era are extraordinary and unique, but the new literature is also full of surprises.
Briefly:
Ode (from gr. Ode - song) - a genre of lyric poetry, a solemn poem written in honor of a person or a historical event.
Oda appeared in Ancient Greece, like most lyric genres. But it gained particular popularity in the era of classicism. The ode appeared in Russian literature in the 18th century. in the works of V. Trediakovsky, M. Lomonosov, V. Petrov, A. Sumarokov, G. Derzhavin and others.
The themes of this genre were not very diverse: the odes spoke of God and the Fatherland, the virtues of a high face, the benefits of sciences, and so on. For example, "An ode to the blessed memory of Empress Anna Ioannovna for the victory over the Turks and Tatars and the capture of Khotin in 1739" by M. Lomonosov.
Odes were composed in the "high style", using Church Slavonic vocabulary, inversion turns, magnificent epithets, rhetorical addresses and exclamations. The pompous syllable of classicistic verses became simpler and closer to the spoken language only in Derzhavin's odes. Beginning with A. Radishchev, the solemn poems acquire a different meaning, the motive of freedom and a call for the abolition of serfdom appear in them. For example, in Pushkin's Liberty or Ryleev's Civil Courage. In the works of the authors of the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. ode is rare. For example, "The City" by V. Bryusov, "Ode to the Revolution" by V. Mayakovsky.
Source: Student Handbook: Grades 5-11. - M .: AST-PRESS, 2000
More details:
The path of the word "ode" is much shorter than that of such concepts as "elegy" or "epigram", mentioned from the 7th-6th centuries. BC NS. Only half a millennium later, Horace began to assert it, and from the middle of the last century it sounds completely archaic - like a piety who composed this healthy chant. However, the evolution of the phenomenon is not exhausted in this case by the history of the term.
Ode: a history of the genre
Even in Ancient Greece, numerous hymns and praises, peans and epicia were created, from which an ode later grows. The ancestor of Odic poetry is considered to be the ancient Greek poet Pindar (6th-5th centuries BC), who composed poetry in honor of the winners of the Olympic competitions. The epiciae of Pindar were distinguished by the pathetic glorification of the hero, the whimsical movement of thought, the rhetorical construction of a poetic phrase.
The most talented successor of Pindar in Roman literature is Horace, who praised "valor and righteousness", "Italian power." He develops, but by no means canonizes the odic genre: along with the pindaric ones, epicurean motifs sound in the poet's odes, civic pride in his nation and state does not overshadow the delights of an intimate existence for Horace.
Opening the next page of the odic anthology, you hardly feel the centuries-old pause that divided the ode of antiquity and the late Renaissance: the Frenchman P. Ronsard and the Italian G. Kyabrera, the German G. Weckerlin and the Englishman D. Dryden deliberately started from classical traditions. At the same time, Ronsard, for example, drew equally from the poetry of Pindar and from the Horatian lyrics.
Such a wide range of standards could not be acceptable for the practitioners and theorists of classicism. Already the younger contemporary of Ronsard F. Mahlerbe ordered the ode, building it as a single logical system. He spoke out against the emotional chaos of Ronsar's odes, which made itself felt in composition, in language, and in verse.
Malherbe creates an odic canon that could either be repeated in epigonese, or destroyed, developing the traditions of Pindar, Horace, Ronsard. Malerba had supporters - and among them were very authoritative (N. Boileau, in Russia - A. Sumarokov), and yet it was the second path that became the main road, along which the ode then moved.
The genre of ode in the works of Lomonosov
The title of "Russian Pindar" was consolidated in the 18th century. after M. Lomonosov, although the first examples of Russian panegyric poetry we find already in S. Polotsky, F. Prokopovich. Lomonosov understood the possibilities of the odic genre broadly: he wrote both solemn and religious-philosophical odes, sang "ecstatic praise" not only to Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, but to the whole world of God, the starry abyss, simple glass. The Lomonosov ode often resembles a state manifesto, and the programmatic character has not only one content, but also the form of its odes. It is constructed as an oratorical monologue of a self-righteous author and expresses the prevailing emotional states: delight, anger, grief. His passion does not change, it grows according to the law of gradation.
Another characteristic feature of Lomonosov's odes is the "conjugation of distant ideas," heightened metaphoricity and paradoxicality. However, Lomonosov's associations grow on a rational basis. As Boileau wrote,
Let the course of thought be in the Ode of fiery bizarre,
But this chaos in it is a ripe fruit of art.
The unexpectedness of metaphors is always balanced here by the striving for their deployment, demonstration, clarification.
A. Sumarokov fiercely fought against the Lomonosov interpretation of the genre, who instilled in the ode moderation and clarity. His line was supported by the majority (Vas. Maikov, Kapnist, Kheraskov and others); on the other hand, among the followers of Lomonosov was not only the pompous Vasily Petrov, but also the brilliant Derzhavin.
Ode genre in Derzhavin's work
He was the first to snatch an ode from the grip of abstraction. The life of his heroes does not consist of one civil service - there is a lot of everyday vanity in it: everyday life and leisure, troubles and entertainment. However, the poet does not castigate human weakness, but, as it were, recognizes their naturalness.
Such is, Felitsa, I am depraved!
But the whole world looks like me, -
he justifies himself. In "Felitsa" a collective image of a nobleman of Catherine's times is drawn, his portrait for the most part is everyday life. Ode approaches here not with satire, but with an outline of morals. Accordingly, the images of statesmen are sequestered - and not in one "Felitsa". The praise "And there was a man in a nobleman" according to Derzhavin's scale of assessments is almost the highest ("For the birth of a porphyry-bearing youth in the North", "For the return of Count Zubov from Persia", "Snigir").
Of course, Derzhavin's traditional odic image descended from heaven to earth, however, immersed in everyday life, his hero feels his involvement in God and eternal nature. Man is great for him as an earthly reflection of a deity. In this impulse to eternal ideals, and not in passing desires, the poet finds the true purpose of people - this is how the heat of odic pathos is maintained (“On the death of Prince Meshchersky,” “God,” “Waterfall”).
Further development of the Russian ode
In Derzhavin's work, the development of the classical ode comes to an end. But, according to Yu. Tynyanov, it “does not disappear as a direction, not as a genre,” and here they meant not only Katenin and Kuchelbecker, but also Mayakovsky.
Indeed, over the course of two centuries, the Odic traditions have been one of the most influential in Russian and Soviet poetry. They are especially activated when drastic changes are planned or made in history, when in society itself there is a need for such verses. Such are the era of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the movement of the Decembrists, the revolutionary situations of the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries, the period of the Great Patriotic War and the middle of the last century.
Odic lyrics are a form of a poet's establishment of a connection between his moods and general ones. The alien becomes ours, mine becomes ours. It is not surprising that poets of the odic nature - these "knights of immediate action" - are interested in the broadest disclosure of their creations, in intensifying their dialogue with people. During social upheavals - "in the days of celebrations and people's misfortunes" - poetry necessarily comes out to the stands, squares and stadiums. Let us recall the moral resonance of the blockade poems (odic and neodic) by O. Bergholz, with which she spoke on the Leningrad radio. In the odic lyrics, the poet assumes the appearance of a popular herald, he does not just form the experiences of many - general forebodings receive the strength of confidence from him. In this sense, we can talk about the ideological and even visionary nature of the odic lyrics.
Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov did a lot for the development of Russian literature. In his work, the great Russian philologist relied on odes.
Foreword
The ode takes its origins from antiquity. The 18th century of Russian literary creativity is represented by a wide variety of odes, such as laudable, spiritual, victorious patriotic, philosophical and anacreontic. As usual, it is a quatrain with a repeating rhyme. In its domestic version, for the most part, stanzas consisting of ten verses were encountered.
Victory-patriotic "Ode to the capture of Khotin"
Mikhail Vasilyevich presented his victorious patriotic creation entitled "Ode to the Capture of Khotin" in 1739. In it, Lomonosov makes possible the isolation of three basic parts: this is the introduction, the very description of battle scenes and then the climax, represented by the glorification and rewarding of the winners. The scenes of the battle are shown with the style of exaggeration inherent in Lomonosov, with many impressive comparisons, metaphors and personifications, which in turn most vividly reflect the drama and heroism of military operations.
Dramaticism and pathos are exacerbated with the emergence of rhetorical questions, exclamations of the author, which he turns to the Russian soldiers, then to their opponents. In addition, there are also references to the historical past, which in turn enriches the ode, performed in the spirit of patriotism.
The first to use rhymes with masculine and feminine rhymes in his odes was Lomonosov. The ode genre is the true pinnacle of his work. Later, iambic tetrameter was also presented in the works of Pushkin, Lermontov, Nekrasov, Yesenin, Blok and other poets.
Laudable odes
Most of the odes written by Mikhail Vasilyevich were associated with the coronation of one ruler or another. He dedicated his odes to John IV Antonovich, Peter III, Anna II and others. An integral part of the idle coronation was the ode genre. Lomonosov was embraced by inspiration, and each of his creations described the official-court role of the rulers in a much broader and more colorful way. In each of the odes, Mikhail Vasilyevich put his own ideological plan, anticipating the bright future of the Russian people.
The genre of ode was used by Mikhail Vasilyevich as one of the most convenient forms of conversation with the crowned rulers. In the form of this praise for the deeds that, as a rule, the monarch had not yet performed, Lomonosov expressed his preferences, instructions and advice in favor of the great power state. Oda allowed them to be presented in a soft, approving and flattering tone for the rulers. What was desired in Lomonosov's coronation praise was passed off as real and thus obliged the monarch to prove himself worthy of it in the future.
The genre of the ode in the work of Mikhail Vasilyevich also reflected all kinds of events in the political life of that time. The greatest attention was paid here to battle events. The great Russian poet was proud of the glory of Russian artillery and the greatness of the Russian state, capable of resisting any enemy.
The poetic individuality of Mikhail Vasilyevich's laudable odes is fully identified with their ideological content. Each ode is a rapturous monologue of the poet.
Spiritual odes
Lomonosov fully showed himself in writing spiritual odes. In the 18th century, they were called poetic statements of biblical scriptures with lyrical content. At the head here was a book of psalms, where poets now and then looked for themes similar to their thoughts and experiences. For this reason, spiritual odes could carry in themselves the most diverse orientation - from especially personal performance of it to high, general civil.
Lomonosov's spiritual odes are filled with rapture, delight, harmony and splendor of the universe.
In presenting one of the most dramatic biblical books, The Book of Job, Lomonosov singled out its pious and ethical issues and brought to the fore the description of her truly reverent pictures of living nature. And again before us, the readers, there appears an immense sky painted with stars, a raging deep sea, a storm, an eagle soaring abstractedly in the heavens, a huge hippopotamus furiously trampling raging thorns, and even a mythical Leviathan in its splendor, living at the bottom of the ocean.
In contrast to the praiseworthy, the genre of the spiritual ode is distinguished by its laconicism and elegance of presentation. The stanzas, consisting of ten verses, are here replaced, as a rule, by quatrains with a ring or The style of writing spiritual odes seems laconic and devoid of all kinds of "decorations".
Finally
An ode was presented to our attention. What other genre can boast of such wonderful lyrical content? Due to the variety of means of expression and ideological content used, the creations of Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov to this day occupy a worthy place among the majestic creations of Russian poetry.
Oda is a solemn poem. Once upon a time in ancient Greek poetry, an ode was called a lyric poem, which was performed by a chorus. It is interesting that initially in Ancient Greece absolutely any form of poetic lyrics accompanying music was attributed to Ode.
The ancient Greek poet Pindar, who lived around 518–442 BC. e., sang in his odes of kings and aristocrats, who, in his opinion, were favored by the gods. Especially the genre of ode took root in the poetry of European classicism, where it became widespread.
The founder of French classicism F. Malerba (1555–1628) worked mainly in the Solemn Ode genre. His odes were about the glorification of the absolutist power in France. The work of J.J. Rousseau also gave rise to the genre of ode.
In Russia, the ode (as V. K. Trediakovsky wrote: "glorifies lofty, noble, sometimes delicate matter") played the role of the main genre of classicism poetry. Exemplary works of this genre belong to M.V. Lomonosov, and among the authors of odes was the poetic heir of M.V.Lomonosov V.P. Petrov and opponent A.P. Sumarokov. Works of this genre of particular value belong to G.R.Derzhavin. In addition to the solemn (pindaric) ode, the moral ode (aka Horatian), love (also called anacreontic) and spiritual (transcription of psalms) received their place in Russian poetry.
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