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The Anacreontic Ode is proof that an ode need not be long and lofty. The Greek poet Anacreon often wrote odes in praise of pleasure and drink, a Dithyramb or Skolion. Often the odes were made up of 7 syllable, rhymed couplets known as Anacreontic couplets. Some of Anacreon’s poems were paraphrased by English poet Abraham Cowley in 1656 in which he attempted to emulate Greek meter. The main concern of several 17th century poets was that the poem avoid “piety” by “Christian” poets who would tame the spirit and make the form worthless. Although the Anacreontic Ode has been defined as a series of Anacreontic couplets, Richard Lovelace’s The Grasshopper is thought to be a translation of an Ode by Anacreon, it does fit the subject matter but the translation is written in iambic pentameter quatrains with alternating rhyme.

The Anacreontic couplet is named for the ancient Greek poet Anacreon who tended to write short lyrical poems celebrating love and wine, a genre known as Dithyramb. By 1700 English poet John Phillips defined the form to be written in 7 syllable rhyming couplets.

The Anacreontic couplet is:
○ stanzaic, written in any number of couplets,
○ preferably short. The Anacreontic Ode is often made up of a series of Anacreontic couplets.
○ syllabic, 7 syllables for each line.
○ rhymed. aa bb etc.
○ composed to celebrate the joys of drinking and love making. Some Anacreontic verse tends toward the erotic or bawdy.

Pasted from http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=2219#couplet
My thanks to Judi Van Gorder for the wonderful PMO site. It is a wonderful resource.

Other Odes: Aeolic Ode, Anacreontic Ode, Choral Ode or Pindaric Ode or Dorian Ode,
Cowleyan Ode or Irregular Ode, Horatian Ode, Keatsian or English Ode, Ronsardian Ode

Thematic Odes:
Elegy, Obsequy, Threnody Ode
Elemental Ode
Genethliacum Ode
Encomium or Coronation Ode
Epithalamion or Epithalamium and Protholathiumis
Palinode Ode
Panegyric or Paean
Triumphal Ode
Occasional Verse

My try at this form:

Elbow Tango  (Anacreontic Ode)

Come and share with me a brew,
or better yet more than two.
Drink in smiles before you go
exercising your elbow.
We can sit on stool or bench,
drink and flirt with serving wench
with fine limbs and rounded ass-
her charms grow with every glass.
Likely, we’ll go home alone
but fine memories we’ll own.

© Lawrencealot – August 13, 2013

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