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58-428: Greek odes were originally poetic pieces performed with musical accompaniment. As time passed on, they gradually became known as personal lyrical compositions whether sung (with or without musical instruments) or merely recited (always with accompaniment). The primary instruments used were the aulos and the lyre (the latter was the most revered instrument to the ancient Greeks ). There are three typical forms of odes:

116-604: A Grecian Urn ", " Ode to Psyche ", and " To Autumn ". After Keats, there have been comparatively few major odes in English. One major exception is the fourth verse of the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon , which is often known as The Ode to the Fallen , or simply as The Ode . W.H. Auden also wrote Ode , one of the most popular poems from his earlier career when he lived in London, in opposition to people's ignorance over

174-456: A double non-free aerophone resembling the aulos – called the cula diare or longari – is still played in the Labëria region to accompany Albanian iso-polyphony . These instruments are woodwind but not double-reeded like the aulos of antiquity. Abraham Cowley Abraham Cowley ( / ˈ k uː l i / ; 1618 – 28 July 1667) was an English poet and essayist born in

232-522: A full posy of beauties may easily be culled from them. The long cadences of the Alexandrines with which most of the strophes close, continued to echo in English poetry from Dryden down to Gray , but the Odes themselves, which were found to be obscure by the poet's contemporaries, immediately fell into disesteem. The 1656 edition includes the notorious passage in which Cowley abjures his loyalty to

290-467: A great many cultural tensions that the Greeks expressed in the opposition they often drew between the lyre and aulos: freedom vs. servility and tyranny, leisured amateurs vs. professionals, moderation ( sophrosyne ) vs. excess, etc. Some of this is a result of 19th century AD "classical interpretation", i.e. Apollo versus Dionysus , or "Reason" (represented by the kithara) opposed to "Madness" (represented by

348-526: A practical interest in experimental science, and he was one of those advocating the foundation of an academy for the protection of scientific enterprise. Cowley's pamphlet on The Advancement of Experimental Philosophy , 1661, immediately preceded the foundation of the Royal Society , to which Cowley, in March 1667, at the suggestion of John Evelyn , addressed an ode. He is also known for having provided

406-428: A rhetoric exercise, an exhibition of literary richness. He appears to have been of a reserved disposition; in the face of these elaborately erotic volumes, we are told that to the end of his days he never spoke of love to a single woman in real life. The "Leonora" of The Chronicle is said to have been the only woman he ever loved, and she married the brother of his biographer, Sprat. Soon after his return to England he

464-413: A vast intelligence in many other parts, which for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights every week." In spite of these labours he did not refrain from writing. During his exile he became familiar with the works of Pindar , and determined to reproduce their lofty lyric passion in English. However, Cowley misunderstood Pindar's metrical practice and therefore his reproduction of

522-443: Is ABABCDECDE. Centuries were occasionally set to music. Composers such as Purcell , Händel and Boyce all set English odes to music. Aulos An aulos (plural auloi ; Ancient Greek : αὐλός , plural αὐλοί ) or tibia ( Latin ) was a wind instrument in ancient Greece , often depicted in art and also attested by archaeology . Though the word aulos is often translated as "flute" or as " double flute ",

580-492: Is a lyric in an elaborate form, expressed in a language that is imaginative, dignified and sincere. Pindaric odes, also called Greek odes, follow the form and style of the Ancient Greek poet Pindar . These employ a tripartite structure, consisting of the strophe , the antistrophe , and the epode . In Ancient Greece, odes would have been performed on a stage to musical accompaniment. The chorus (or performers of

638-465: Is a misunderstanding of the Pindaric ode on Cowley's part. In fact, Cowley's odes are very different from the strictly formal Pindaric ode. In Cowley's poetry, the ode follows an iambic metre, but employs no regular rhyme or line length. The 'pindarique' was employed by John Milton in the chorus of his lyrical tragedy, Samson Agonistes (1670/71). However, he corrects Cowley's misunderstanding of

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696-491: Is our home... Others also wrote odes: Samuel Taylor Coleridge , John Keats , and Percy Bysshe Shelley who wrote odes with regular stanza patterns. Shelley's Ode to the West Wind , written in fourteen line terza rima stanzas, is a major poem in the form. Perhaps the greatest odes of the 19th century, however, were Keats's Five Great Odes of 1819 , which included " Ode to a Nightingale ", " Ode on Melancholy ", " Ode on

754-597: Is part of the Lost Sounds Orchestra, alongside other ancient instruments which ASTRA have recreated the sounds of, including the epigonion , the salpinx , the barbiton and the syrinx . The aulos was also featured in the 2009 movie Agora , wherein a character performs a solo in an amphitheatre. It is also visible in the 2007 movie 300 . Modern evolutions of the aulos exist in Southeastern Europe . In southern Albania , specifically,

812-437: Is sometimes used by analogy with rhapsode and citharode ( citharede ) to refer to an aulos -player, who may also be called an aulist ; however, aulode more commonly refers to a singer who sang the accompaniment to a piece played on the aulos. There were several kinds of aulos , single or double. The most common variety was a reed instrument. Archeological finds, surviving iconography and other evidence indicate that it

870-642: Is thrice repeated, yielding a longer poem of nine stanzas . Horatian odes, sometimes called homostrophic odes, follow the conventions of the Roman poet Horace . Unlike the Pindaric ode, the Horatian ode is made up of any number of stanzas (usually quatrains ) which all follow the same rhyme scheme and metre . In contrast with the very formal panegyric style of many of Pindar's odes, Horatian odes often tackle more intimate subjects, such as love and friendship, and were not written for public performance. Some of

928-513: The City of London late in 1618. He was one of the leading English poets of the 17th century, with 14 printings of his Works published between 1668 and 1721. Cowley's father, a wealthy Londoner, who died shortly before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of The Faerie Queene . This became the favourite reading of her son, and he had read it twice before he

986-550: The Davideis , was published after his death. The epic deals with the adventures of King David from his boyhood to the smiting of Amalek by Saul , where it abruptly closes. In 1638 Loves Riddle and a Latin comedy, the Naufragium Joculare , were printed, and in 1641 the passage of Prince Charles (later to be King Charles II) through Cambridge led to the production of another dramatic work, The Guardian , which

1044-557: The Great Highland Bagpipe , the aulos has been used for martial music , but it is more frequently depicted in other social settings. A normal flute would produce insufficient volume to be of any use in military application, where a double-reed could be heard over larger distances, and over the clamour of marching whilst wearing armour. It was the standard accompaniment of the passionate elegiac poetry . It also accompanied physical activities such as wrestling matches,

1102-505: The 18th century, the fashion for Pindaric odes faded, though there are notable actual Pindaric odes by Thomas Gray , The Progress of Poesy and The Bard . Around 1800, William Wordsworth revived Cowley's Pindaric for one of his finest poems, the Intimations of Immortality ode: There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and

1160-669: The Departing Year " and Wordsworth 's " Ode: Intimations of Immortality ". During his exile, Cowley wrote a history of the Civil War (which did not get published in full until 1973). In the preface to his 1656 Poems , Cowley mentioned that he had completed three books of an epic poem on the Civil War, but had left it unfinished after the First Battle of Newbury when the Royalist cause began to lose significant ground. In

1218-461: The Great 's aulete Timotheus discusses fame with his pupil Harmonides. Timotheus advises him to impress the experts within his profession rather than seek popular approval in big public venues. If leading musicians admire him, popular approval will follow. However, Lucian reports that Harmonides died from excessive blowing during practicing. In myth, Marsyas the satyr was supposed to have invented

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1276-567: The Papist (1643). After the Battle of Marston Moor he followed the queen to Paris, where his exile lasted twelve years. This period was spent almost entirely in the royal service, "bearing a share in the distresses of the royal family, or labouring in their affairs. To this purpose he performed several dangerous journeys into Jersey , Scotland , Flanders, the Netherlands , or wherever else

1334-404: The Pindaric ode form in English did not accurately reflect Pindar's poetics. But despite this problem, Cowley's use of iambic lines of irregular length, pattern, and rhyme scheme was very influential and these type of odes are still known in English as Pindarics , Irregular Odes or Cowleyan Odes. Some of the most famous odes written after Cowley in the Pindaric tradition are Coleridge 's " Ode on

1392-487: The Pindaric, Horatian, and irregular. Pindaric odes follow the form and style of Pindar . Horatian odes follow conventions of Horace ; the odes of Horace deliberately imitated the Greek lyricists such as Alcaeus and Anacreon . Irregular odes use rhyme, but not the three-part form of the Pindaric ode, nor the two- or four-line stanza of the Horatian ode. The ode is a lyric poem. It conveys exalted and inspired emotions. It

1450-584: The Restoration brought him back in Charles's train. In 1662, he published the first two books of Plantarum ( Plantarum libri duo ). He published in 1663 Verses upon several occasions , in which The Complaint is included. Cowley obtained permission to retire into the country; and through his friend, Lord St Albans , he obtained a property near Chertsey , where, devoting himself to botany and books, he lived in comparative solitude until his death. He took

1508-405: The aulos). In the temple to Apollo at Delphi, there was also a shrine to Dionysus, and his Maenads are shown on drinking cups playing the aulos, but Dionysus is sometimes shown holding a kithara or lyre. So a modern interpretation can be a little more complicated than just simple duality. This opposition is mostly an Athenian one. It might be surmised that things were different at Thebes , which

1566-404: The aulos, or else picked it up after Athena had thrown it away because it caused her cheeks to puff out and ruined her beauty. In any case, he challenged Apollo to a musical contest, where the winner would be able to "do whatever he wanted" to the loser—Marsyas's expectation, typical of a satyr, was that this would be sexual in nature. But Apollo and his lyre beat Marsyas and his aulos. And since

1624-487: The blockage; the aulete had a fundamental role in ensuring the integrity of the phalanx. In this particular scene, the phalanx approaching from the left is unprepared and momentarily outnumbered four to five. More soldiers can be seen running up to assist them from behind. Even though the front four are lacking a fifth soldier, they have the advantage because the aulete is there to bring the formation back together. An amphora from c.  540 –530 BC depicts Herakles in

1682-584: The broad jump, the discus throw and to mark the rowing cadence on triremes , as well as sacrifices and dramas. Plato associates it with the ecstatic cults of Dionysus and the Korybantes , banning it from his Republic but permitting it in his Laws . Players of the aulos used a tool known as the Phorbeia or the Capistrum . It was a device that consisted of two straps. One was placed on top of

1740-517: The crown: "yet when the event of battle, and the unaccountable will of God has determined the controversie, and that we have submitted to the conditions of the Conqueror, we must lay down our Pens as well as Arms, we must march out of our Cause itself, and dismantle that, as well as our own Towns and Castles, of all the Works and Fortifications as Wit and Reason by which we defended it." 'The Mistress'

1798-571: The earliest reference to coca in English literature, in "Pomona", the fifth book of his posthumously published Latin work Plantarum libri sex (included in Works , 1668; translated as Six Books of Plants in 1689). He died in the Porch House in Chertsey, in consequence of having caught a cold while superintending his farm-labourers in the meadows late on a summer evening. On 3 August, Cowley

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1856-505: The first of two extant manuscript copies of the whole poem among the Cowper family papers. Thus, the three completed books of Cowley's great (albeit unfinished) English epic, The Civill Warre (otherwise spelled "The Civil War"), was finally published in full for the first time in 1973. In 1647 a collection of his love verses, entitled The Mistress , was published, and in the next year a volume of wretched satires, The Four Ages of England ,

1914-688: The form as Pindaric in his 'Preface': The lyrics can be on various themes. The earliest odes in the English language, using the word in its strict form, were the Epithalamium and Prothalamium of Edmund Spenser . In the 17th century, the original odes in English were by Abraham Cowley . These were iambic , but had irregular line length patterns and rhyme schemes. Cowley based the principle of his "Pindariques" on an apparent misunderstanding of Pindar's metrical practice but, nonetheless, others widely imitated his style, with notable success by John Dryden . With Pindar's metre being better understood in

1972-439: The freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoe'er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.... Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who

2030-401: The head and another was placed on the back of the head and stretched from ear to ear to support the cheeks. It was used by ancient musicians to play the aulos by allowing them to create noise through circular breathing and steady the instrument. It may have also been used to prevent the reeds of the instrument from falling down the throat of the player. Another potential use for the phrobeia

2088-510: The instrument was usually double-reeded, and its sound—described as "penetrating, insisting and exciting"—was more akin to that of modern woodwind instruments such as oboes or bagpipes with a chanter and (modulated) drone . An aulete ( αὐλητής , aulētēs ) was the musician who performed on an aulos . The ancient Roman equivalent was the tibicen (plural tibicines ), from the Latin tibia, "pipe, aulos ." The neologism aulode

2146-442: The king's troubles required his attendance. But the chief testimony of his fidelity was the laborious service he underwent in maintaining the constant correspondence between the late king and the queen his wife. In that weighty trust he behaved himself with indefatigable integrity and unsuspected secrecy; for he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand the greatest part of all the letters that passed between their majesties, and managed

2204-616: The latter are to be found Cowley's most vital pieces. This section of his works opens with the famous aspiration: It contains elegies on Wotton , Vandyck , Falkland, William Hervey and Crashaw , the last two being among Cowley's finest poems, brilliant, sonorous and original; the amusing ballad of The Chronicle , giving a fictitious catalogue of his supposed amours; various gnomic pieces; and some charming paraphrases from Anacreon. The Pindarique Odes contain weighty lines and passages, buried in irregular and inharmonious masses of moral verbiage. Not more than one or two are good throughout, but

2262-558: The most renowned Horatian odes were written by English Romantic poet John Keats , most famously Ode to a Nightingale (1819). Irregular odes further break down the ode's formal conventions. They are sometimes called Cowleyan odes after the English Enlightenment poet Abraham Cowley , who revived the form in England with his publication of fifteen Pindarique Odes in 1656. Though this title derives from Pindar, it

2320-462: The ode) would deliver the strophe from one side of the stage, then move to the opposite side to deliver the antistrophe, and finally to centerstage for the epode. This is reflected the three-part nature of the ode: the strophe sets up a theme, the antistrophe balances it with a contrary perspective, and the epode summarises. Pindaric odes do not follow strict metrical conventions, meaning they are often irregular in their rhyme and line length. However,

2378-469: The preface, Cowley indicated that he had destroyed all copies of the poem, but this was not precisely the truth. In 1679, twelve years after Cowley's death, a shortened version of the first book of the poem, called A Poem on the Late Civil War was published. It was assumed that the rest of the poem had indeed been destroyed or lost until the mid-20th century when scholar Allan Pritchard discovered

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2436-682: The process of completing his tenth labor . Auletes can be seen playing in a procession going around on the neck of the amphora. The sounds of the aulos are being digitally recreated by the Ancient Instruments Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application (ASTRA) project which uses physical modeling synthesis to simulate the aulos sounds. Due to the complexity of this process the ASTRA project uses grid computing to model sounds on hundreds of computers throughout Europe simultaneously. The aulos

2494-552: The pure lord of Delphi 's mind worked in different ways from Marsyas's, he celebrated his victory by stringing his opponent up from a tree and flaying him alive. Marsyas's blood and the tears of the Muses formed the river Marsyas in Asia Minor. This tale was a warning against committing the sin of " hubris ", or overweening pride, in that Marsyas thought he might win against a god. Strange and brutal as it is, this myth reflects

2552-411: The reality of war. In an interview, Auden once stated that he had intended to title the poem My Silver Age in mockery of England's supposed imperial golden age, however chose Ode as it seemed to provide a more sensitive exploration of warfare. Ode on a Grecian Urn , while an ekphrasis , also functions as an ode to the artistic beauty the narrator observes. The English ode's most common rhyme scheme

2610-478: The royalist side. He became a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, but was ejected by the Parliamentarians in 1643. He made his way to Oxford, where he enjoyed the friendship of Lord Falkland, and gained the personal confidence of the royal family. Around this time, he published two anti-Puritan satires: A Satyre Against Separatists (attribution sometimes disputed), printed in 1642, and The Puritan and

2668-410: The strophe and antistrophe are typically identical in structure, with the epode varying the form. William Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood (1807) and Thomas Gray's The Progress of Poesy: A Pindaric Ode (1757) are both written in the Pindaric style. Gray's The Bard: A Pindaric Ode (1757) is a Pindaric ode where the three-part structure

2726-471: The study of all kinds of learning, and early distinguished himself as a ripe scholar". Portraits of Cowley, attributed to William Faithorne and Stephen Slaughter , are in Trinity College's collection. It was about this time that he composed his scriptural epic on the history of King David , one book of which still exists in the Latin original. An English version of the epic in four books, called

2784-455: Was double-reeded , like the modern oboe , but with a larger mouthpiece, like the surviving Armenian duduk . A single pipe without a reed was called the monaulos ( μόναυλος , from μόνος "single"). A single pipe held horizontally, as the modern flute, was the plagiaulos (πλαγίαυλος, from πλάγιος "sideways"). A pipe with a bag to allow for continuous sound (a bagpipe ) was the askaulos (ἀσκαυλός from ἀσκός askos " wineskin "). Like

2842-454: Was a center of aulos-playing. At Sparta —which had no Bacchic or Korybantic cults to serve as contrast—the aulos was actually associated with Apollo, and accompanied the hoplites into battle. The battle scene on the Chigi vase shows an aulos player setting a lyrical rhythm for the hoplite phalanx to advance to. This accompaniment reduced the possibility of an opening in the formation of

2900-559: Was brought out under his name, with the composition of which he had nothing to do . In spite of the troubled times, usually so fatal to poetic fame, his reputation steadily increased, and when, on his return to England in 1656, he published a volume of his collected poetical works, he found himself without a rival in public esteem. This volume included the Pindarique Odes , the Davideis , the Mistress and some Miscellanies . Among

2958-523: Was buried in Westminster Abbey beside the ashes of Chaucer and Spenser , where in 1675 the Duke of Buckingham erected a monument to his memory. The poetry of Cowley rapidly fell into neglect. The first volume of Cowley's collected works was published in 1668, when Thomas Sprat brought out an edition in folio, to which he prefixed a life of the poet. This included Poemata Latina , including

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3016-445: Was holding the lips in place, taking some strain off of the lip muscles. Although aristocrats with sufficient leisure sometimes practiced aulos-playing as they did the lyre , after the later fifth century the aulos became chiefly associated with professional musicians, often slaves. Nevertheless, such musicians could achieve fame. The Romano-Greek writer Lucian discusses aulos playing in his dialogue Harmonides , in which Alexander

3074-436: Was only fifteen years old. His next composition was a pastoral comedy, entitled Loves Riddle , a marvellous production for a boy of sixteen, airy, correct and harmonious in language, and rapid in movement. The style is not without resemblance to that of the poet Thomas Randolph , whose earliest works had only just been printed. In 1637 Cowley went up to Trinity College, Cambridge , where he "betook himself with enthusiasm to

3132-479: Was performed before the royal visitor with much success. During the civil war this play was privately performed at Dublin , but it was not printed till 1650. It is bright and amusing, in the style common to the "sons" of Ben Jonson , the university wits who wrote more for the closet than the public stage. The learned quiet of the young poet's life was disrupted by the Civil War in 1642 as he warmly espoused

3190-401: Was seized in mistake for another person, and only obtained his liberty on a bail of £1000. In 1658 he revised and altered his play of The Guardian , and prepared it for the press under the title of The Cutter of Coleman Street , but it was not staged until 1661. Late in 1658 Oliver Cromwell died, and Cowley took advantage of the resulting confusion to escape to Paris, where he remained until

3248-595: Was sent to Westminster School . At Westminster he displayed extraordinary mental precocity and versatility, writing when he was just thirteen the Elegy on the Death of Dudley, Lord Carlton . These three lengthy poems, and some smaller ones, were collected in 1633, and published in a volume entitled Poeticall Blossomes , dedicated to Lambert Osbaldeston , the headmaster of the school, and prefaced by many laudatory verses by schoolfellows. Cowley at once became famous, although he

3306-506: Was sent to school. As early as 1628, when he was only ten years old, he composed his Tragicall Historie of Piramus and Thisbe , an epic romance written in a six-line stanza, a style of his own invention. It has been considered to be a most astonishing feat of imaginative precocity; it is marked by no great faults of immaturity, and possesses constructive merits of a very high order. Two years later, Cowley wrote another and still more ambitious poem, Constantia and Philetus ; around this time he

3364-524: Was the most popular poetic reading of the age, and is now the least read of all Cowley's works. It was the last and most violent expression of the amatory affectation of the 17th century, an affectation which had been endurable in Donne and other early writers because it had been the vehicle of sincere emotion, but some find it complex in Cowley because for him it represented nothing but a love sublimation besides

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