er forms, the ode is a poem of some length treating an elevated theme in a lofty, dignified manner. It has its origins in ancient Greece and was initially written to be delivered with musical accompaniment. There are 3 major types of modern odes. The Pindaric or regular ode, like Thomas Gray's Progress of Poesy: it is divided into three triads, each of which has a strophe, antistrophe, and epode. The second type of ode is called the homostrophic ode. Coleridge's Ode to France supplies a good example of the homostrophic ode as do Keats' Ode on Melancholy and Ode to a Nightingale . The third type of ode is called the irregular or Cowleyan ode (after the poet Cowley who used the form in the seventeenth century). As its name indicates, the irregular ode consists of a number of stanzas that are unlike in structure-that is, in the number of lines, length of lines, and rhyme scheme. More flexible obviously than the other two types, the irregular ode can be seen superbly used by William Wordsworth in Ode on the Intinations of Immortality.
Pathetic fallacy. The attribution of human traits to nature or inanimate objects. [Coined by John Ruskin in 1856.]
Sarcasm. A form of sneering criticism in which disapproval is often expressed as ironic praise.
Satire. A literary mode based on criticism of people and society through ridicule. The satirist aims to reduce the practices attacked by laughing scornfully at them--and being witty enough to allow the reader to laugh, also.
Setting. The total environment for the action of a fictional work. Setting includes time period (such as the 1890's), the place (such as downtown Warsaw), the historical milieu (such as during the Crimean War), as well as the social, political, and perhaps even spiritual realities.
Simile. The comparison of two unlike things using like or as. Related to metaphor. Example: "He eats like a pig."
Stanza. Every poem has a pattern, and it is the line which determines the pattern. The foot is the unit of the line; the measured line is the unit of the verse, or stanza; the stanza is the unit that shapes the poem as a whole.
Symbol. Something that on the surface is its literal self but which also has another meaning or even several meanings. For example, a sword may be a sword and also symbolize justice. A symbol may be said to embody an idea. There are two general types of symbols: universal symbols that embody universally recognizable meanings wherever used, such as light to symbolize knowledge, a skull to symbolize death, etc., and constructed symbols that are given symbolic meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work, as the white whale becomes a symbol of evil in Moby Dick.