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

Irregular ode (Cowleyan ode)

Irregular ode (Cowleyan ode): Named for its inventor, seventeenth-century English poet Abraham Cowley, an ode with an irregular stanzaic structure and form. Unlike the recurrent, triadic structure of a Pindaric ode and the homostrophic structure of a Horatian ode, the structure and form of an irregular ode are flexible; the irregular ode may comprise any number of stanzas, and the line length, number of lines, and rhyme scheme of individual stanzas may vary widely, providing the poet with more freedom in composition.

EXAMPLES: Cowley’s inaptly named Pindarique Odes (1656); William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” (1807).