The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms - Ross Murfin 2018

Horatian ode

Horatian ode: Named for the first-century B.C. Roman lyric poet Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), an ode composed of homostrophic stanzas, that is, stanzas with the same rhyme scheme, meter, and number of lines. The term Horatian is sometimes also applied to writing with a meditative, quiet, and informal tone like that found in Horace’s odes.

EXAMPLES: Andrew Marvell’s “An Horatian Ode” (1650), occasional verse written upon Oliver Cromwell’s triumphant return from the conquest of Ireland; John Keats’s “To Autumn” (1820).