What is "odes"

n. (plural of ode English)

Odes may refer to:

• The plural of ode, a type of poem
• Odes (Horace), a collection of poems by the Roman author Horace, circa 23 BCE
• Odes of Solomon, a pseudepigraphic book of the Bible
• Book of Odes (Bible), a Deuterocanonical book of the Bible
• Odes, a music album
• Odes, Victor Hugo's second poetry book.
• Classic of Poetry, a book from ancient China that has been translated as Odes
• Odes (The Flowers Of Hell album)
• ODEs may be an abbreviation for Ordinary differential equations.
• Odic force
• "-odes", a suffix used in taxonomy

The Odes are a collection in four books of Latin lyric poems by Horace. The Horatian ode format and style has been emulated since by other poets. Books 1 to 3 were published in 23 BC. According to the journal Quadrant, they were "unparalleled by any collection of lyric poetry produced before or after in Latin literature". A fourth book, consisting of 15 poems, was published in 13 BC.

The Odes were developed as a conscious imitation of the short lyric poetry of Greek originals – Pindar, Sappho and Alcaeus are some of Horace's models. His genius lay in applying these older forms to the social life of Rome in the age of Augustus. The Odes cover a range of subjects – Love, Friendship, Wine, Religion, Morality, Patriotism; poems of eulogy addressed to Augustus and his relations; and verses written on a miscellany of subjects and incidents, including the uncertainty of life, the cultivation of tranquility and contentment, and the observance of moderation or the "golden mean."

The Odes have been considered traditionally by English-speaking scholars as purely literary works. Recent evidence by a Horatian scholar suggests they may have been intended as performance art, a Latin re-interpretation of Greek lyric song. The Roman writer Petronius, writing less than a century after Horace's death, remarked on the curiosa felicitas (studied spontaneity) of the Odes (Satyricon 118). The English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson declared that the Odes provided "jewels five-words long, that on the stretched forefinger of all Time / Sparkle for ever" (The Princess, part II, l.355).

The collected odes were first published in three books in 23 BC.

Odes is an album of Greek folk songs by Irene Papas and Vangelis. All of the songs are traditional, except two which are original compositions by Vangelis. Recorded in Nemo studios, London 1979, the entirety of the album is performed and produced by Vangelis, with the addition of a five-people choir in the opening track and of course, Irene Papas' lead vocals. First issue of the album on compact disc was in Greece only (Polydor 833 864-2). A remastered edition was released by Universal Music in 2007.

Released in late 2012, Odes is the fourth studio album from The Flowers of Hell. It is a covers record and the first release from the group to feature vocals and verse-chorus-verse song structures. It was premiered by Lou Reed, who opened the twelfth and final episode of his New York Shuffle radio show praising the group and airing three songs in a row, O Superheroin (a marriage of Laurie Anderson's O Superman and Lou Reed's Heroin), Mr. Tambourine Man (re-imagined to sound like The Velvet Underground circa 1967), and Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft.

The group collaborated with Czech dissident musician Ivo Pospíšil ( DG 307, The Plastic People of the Universe, Půlnoc) on a reworking of the Prague underground classic Muchomůrky Bílé, and with British Sea Power's Neil Wilkinson and Abi Fry (a founding member of The Flowers of Hell and two times Mercury Prize nominee) on Fleetwood Mac's Over And Over.