Perhaps no poet is associated with the
ode more than
John Keats (
1795-
1821). Beginning in the spring of 1819, in a burst of creativity he wrote most of his best poems that year. Notable among them is his series of great odes. Of the first,
Ode to Psyche, on April 30 Keats wrote that it was "the first and only {poem} with which I have taken even moderate pains." At the time, Keats was only 24, and his poetic
genius was more potent than that any other great writer at the same age, including
Shakespeare,
Chaucer, and
Milton. Sickening, isn’t it? Keats died two years later of
tuberculosis.
The odes:
Ode to Psyche (April)
Ode to a Nightingale (May)
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Ode on Melancholy
Ode on Indolence