Lesson Plan: Writing an Ode

Author: B. D'Amato, Murry Bergtraum HS, New York, NY
 

Subject: English
 

Grade Level: 9-12

Overview: This lesson is designed to assist students in understanding one type of lyric poems, ode. Through the study and analysis of the poem "To Autumn" by Keats, students can understand this particular type of lyric poetry more effectively in their future reading, and they will also demonstrate their understanding by composing an ode.

Objective:

  1. To explore the theme of the poem "To Autumn"".
  2. To discuss how autumn is described in the poem

 

Materials: read the following poem
 

To Autumn by John Keats
                                   1.
          SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
            Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
          Conspiring with him how to load and bless
            With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
          To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
            And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
              To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
          With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
            And still more, later flowers for the bees,
            Until they think warm days will never cease,
              For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

                                   2.
          Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
            Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
          Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
            Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
          Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
            Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
              Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
          And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
            Steady thy laden head across a brook;
            Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
              Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

                                   3.
          Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
            Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--
          While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
            And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
          Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
            Among the river sallows, borne aloft
              Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
          And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
            Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
            The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
              And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

 


 

Activities and Procedures: Begin the class by discussing the following questions:

  1. Read the first stanza and circle two words which you think best describe autumn.
  2. Point out lines in the first stanza which draw pictures in your mind
  3. Name at least three things that autumn and the sun are conspiring to do in stanza 1. How may autumn confuse the bees?
  4. Cite three instances in which the spirit of autumn is personified as a farm girl?
  5. What sights are evoked at line 25-26 to picture autumn's beauty? What autumn sounds are mentioned in the last seven lines of final stanza?
  6. What does Keats suggest about autumn's beauty and about cyclic pattern of nature? Is this poem mainly descriptive, or does the poet intrude his moods on the poem?
  7. What examples of tactile imagery-imagery that appeals to the senses of touch-do you find in" autumn"?
  8. What is the theme of the ode?(ripeness and harvest; nature's cycles)

 

Follow-up Activities:

  1. Does Keat's prefer autumn to the other seasons?
  2. Read Keat's Ode on a Grecian Urn or Ode to a Nightingale
  3. What images-of sound, sight, smell, taste, or touch-have led you on a journal of the imagination, perhaps back to some remembered past occurrence?
  4. Think of a season and write down two words which can best describe the season. What images do you usually see in this season?
  5. What kind of person would you like to compare the season to, and in what manner? Describe it.
  6. What kind of sound do you hear in this season, and make a list of different sounds and describe who is part of the "orchestra".
  7. Use the above notes as a source to compose your own ode.

 

Notes for the class: What is an ode?

An ode is an exalted lyric poem, aiming at loftier thought, more dignified expression, and more intricate formal structure than most lyrics. Another characteristic of odes is that they often addressed to someone or something.

An ode is a long lyric poem, serious and dignified in subject, tone, and style, often written to celebrate an event, person, being or power--or to provide a vehicle for private meditation. Sometimes an ode may have an elaborate stanzaic structure. Almost all odes are poems of address, in which the poet uses apostrophe( repetition of the initial word of thou -a poetic figure of speech in which inanimate object or absent person is directly addressed).

The ode was originally a Greek form used in dramatic poetry, in which a chorus would follow the movements of a dance while singing the words of the ode. Those odes often celebrated a public occasion of consequence, such as a military victory. From those ancient Greek beginnings, the form has descended through the Western culture to appear in English divested of dance and song.

Irregular odes: they have no set rhyme scheme and no set stanza pattern.

Horatian odes follow a regular stanza pattern and rhyme scheme, as does the ode by Keats.