About The Odes Project

The Keats Odes website presents six of Keats' most famous poems, the "Great Odes": "Ode to Psyche," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on Melancholy," "Ode on Indolence," and "To Autumn." We offer a biographical outline of Keats' life, and a section for each of the six odes. Each ode section displays the poem, presenting it in Keats' original layout. Images are also available to offer visual assistance and genetic material for each poem.

But, as Samuel Hazo, the poet laureate of Pennsylvania, once said: "poetry was and is an oral or bardic art." So there is a recorded reading of each ode to offer an auditory example of the proper reading and inflection of Keats' odes. You can read the ode while hearing it recited, and hover over an unfamiliar or obscure word or phrase to have it glossed.

The idea behind The Odes Project came from a discussion with a professor about the idea of a more engaging method to teach poetry, one that combined technology and education. The site focuses on John Keats' odes, not only because of their influence on later lyrical poems, but also because they can be taught at varying levels to students at different points in their academic careers. The larger target age range allows for more use of the website in the classroom, increasing exposure both to the idea of technology-based learning of literature and some of the most important poems in the English language. In turn, exposure to this technology-infused approach may instill in the students a deeper appreciation for poetry.