which were the earliest of their kind in English; unhappily they were not very poetical. He was imitated by Ambrose Philips, but then the tide of Cowley-Pindarism rose again and swept the reform away. The attempts of Gilbert West (1703–1756) to explain the prosody of Pindar (1749) inspired Gray to write his “Progress of Poesy” (1754) and “The Bard” (1756). Collins, meanwhile, had in 1747 published a collection of odes devised in the Aeolian or Lesbian manner. The odes of Mason and Akenside were more correctly Pindaric, but frigid and formal. The odes of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Tennyson are entirely irregular. Shelley desired to revive the pure manner of the Greeks, but he understood the principle of the form so little that he began his noble “Ode to Naples” with two epodes, passed on to two strophes, and then indulged in four successive antistrophes. Coventry Patmore, in 1868, printed a volume of Odes, which he afterwards enlarged; these were irregularly built up on a musical system, the exact consistency of which is not always apparent. Finally Swinburne, although some of his odes, like those of Keats, are really elaborate lyrics, written in a succession of stanzas identical in form, has cultivated the Greek form also, and some of his political odes follow very closely the type of Bacchylides and Pindar.
See Philipp August Böckh, De metris Pindari (1811); Wilhelm Christ, Metrik der Griechen und Römer (1874); Edmund Gosse, English Odes (1881). (E.G.)
ODENKIRCHEN, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine
province, 21 m. by rail S.W. of Düsseldorf, and at the junction
of lines to Munich, Gladbach and Stolberg. Pop. (1905) 16,808.
It has a Roman Catholic church, an Evangelical one, a synagogue
and several schools. Its principal industries are spinning, weaving,
tanning and dyeing. Odenkirchen became a town in 1856.
See Wiedemann, Geschichte der ehemaligen Herrschaft und des Hauses Odenkirchen (Odenkirchen, 1879).
ODENSE, a city of Denmark, the chief town of the amt (county)
of its name, which forms the northern part of the island of
Fünen (Fyen). Pop. (1901) 40,138. The city lies 4 m. from
Odense Fjord on the Odense Aa, the main portion on the north
side of the stream, and the industrial Albani quarter on the
south side. It has a station on the railway route between
Copenhagen and Jutland and Schleswig-Holstein via Korsör.
A canal, 1512 to 21 ft. deep, gives access to the town from the
fjord. St Canute’s cathedral, formerly connected with the
great Benedictine monastery of the same name, is one of the
largest and finest buildings of its kind in Denmark. It is constructed
of brick in a pure Gothic style. Originally dating
from 1081–1093, it was rebuilt in the 13th century. Under
the altar lies Canute (Knud), the patron saint of Denmark,
who intended to dispute with William of Normandy the possession
of England, but was slain in an insurrection at Odense in
1086; Kings John and Christian II. are also buried within the
walls. Our Lady’s church, built in the 13th century and restored
in 1851–1852 and again in 1864, contains a carved altarpiece
(16th century) by Claus Berg of Lübeck. Odense Castle
was erected by Frederick IV., who died there in 1730. In
Albani are tanneries, iron-foundries and machine-shops. Exports,
mostly agricultural produce (butter, bacon, eggs); imports,
iron, petroleum, coal, yarn and timber.
Odense, or Odinsey, originally Odinsoe, i.e. Odin’s island, is one of the oldest cities of Denmark. St Canute’s shrine was a great resort of pilgrims throughout the middle ages. In the 16th century the town was the meeting-place of several parliaments, and down to 1805 it was the seat of the provincial assembly of Fünen.
ODENWALD, a wooded mountainous region of Germany,
almost entirely in the grand duchy of Hesse, with small portions
in Bavaria and Baden. It stretches between the Neckar and the
Main, and is some 50 m. long by 20 to 30 broad. Its highest
points are the Katzenbuckel (2057 ft.), the Neunkircher Höhe
(1985 ft.) and the Krähberg (1965 ft.). The wooded heights
overlooking the Bergstrasse are studded with castles and medieval
ruins, some of which are associated with some of the most
memorable adventures of German tradition. Among them are
Rodenstein, the reputed home of the wild huntsman, and near
Grasellenbach, the spot where Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied
is said to have been slain.
See F. Montanus, Der Odenwald (Mainz, 1884); T. Lorentzen, Der Odenwald in Wort und Bild (Stuttgart, 1904); G. Volk, Der Odenwald und seine Nachbargebiete (Stuttgart, 1900), and Windhaus, Führer durch den Odenwald (Darmstadt, 1903).
ODER (Lat. Viadua; Slavonic, Vjodr), a river of Germany,
rises in Austria on the Odergebirge in the Moravian tableland
at a height of 1950 ft. above the sea, and 14 m. to the east of
Olmütz. From its source to its mouth in the Baltic it has
a total length of 560 m., of which 480 m. are navigable for barges,
and it drains an area of 43,300 sq. m. The first 45 m. of its
course lie within Moravia; for the next 15 m. it forms the
frontier between Prussian and Austrian Silesia, while the remaining
500 m. belong to Prussia, where it traverses the provinces
of Silesia, Brandenburg and Pomerania. It flows at first
towards the south-east, but on quitting Austria turns towards
the north-west, maintaining this direction as far as Frankfort-on-Oder,
beyond which its general course is nearly due north. As far
as the frontier the Oder flows through a well-defined valley,
but, after passing through the gap between the Moravian
mountains, and the Carpathians and entering the Silesian plain,
its valley is wide and shallow and its banks generally low. In
its lower course it is divided into numerous branches, forming
many islands. The main channel follows the left side of the
valley and finally expands into the Pommersches, or Stettiner
Haff, which is connected with the sea by three arms, the Peene,
the Swine and the Dievenow, forming the islands of Usedom
and Wollin. The Swine, in the middle, is the main channel
for navigation. The chief tributaries of the Oder on the left
bank are the Oppa, Glatzer Neisse, Katzbach, Bober and
Lausitzer Neisse; on the right bank the Malapane, Bartsch
and Warthe. Of these the only one of importance for
navigation is the Warthe, which through the Netze is brought
into communication with the Vistula. The Oder is also connected
by canals with the Havel and the Spree. The most important
towns on its banks are Ratibor, Oppeln, Brieg, Breslau, Glogau,
Frankfort, Cüstrin and Stettin, with the seaport of Swinemünde
at its mouth. Glogau, Cüstrin and Swinemünde are strongly
fortified.
The earliest important undertaking with a view of improving the waterway was due to the initiative of Frederick the Great, who recommended the diversion of the river into a new and straight channel in the swampy tract of land known as the Oderbruch, near Cüstrin. The work was carried out in the years 1746–1753, a large tract of marshland being brought under cultivation, a considerable detour cut off, and the main stream successfully confined to the canal, 12 m. in length, which is known as the New Oder. The river at present begins to be navigable for barges at Ratibor, where it is about 100 ft. wide, and for larger vessels at Breslau, and great exertions are made by the government to deepen and keep open the channel, which still shows a strong tendency to choke itself with sand in certain places. The alterations made of late years consist of three systems of works:—(1) The canalization of the main stream (4 m.) at Breslau, and from the confluence of the Glatzer Neisse to the mouth of the Klodnitz canal, a distance of over 50 m. These engineering works were completed in 1896. (2) In 1887–1891 the Oder-Spree canal was made to connect the two rivers named. The canal leaves the Oder at Fürstenberg (132 m. above its mouth) at an altitude of 93 ft., and after 15 m. enters the Friedrich-Wilhelm canal (134 ft.). After coinciding with this for 7 m., it makes another cut of 5 m. to the Spree at Fürstenwalde (126 ft.). Then it follows the Spree for 12 m., and at Gross Tränke (121 ft.) passes out and goes to Lake Seddin (106 ft.), 15 m. (3) The deepening and regulation of the mouth and lower course of the stream, consisting of the Kaiserfahrt, 3 m. long, affording a waterway between the Stettiner Haff and the river Swine for the largest ocean-going vessels; a new cut, 41 m. long, from Vietzig on the Stettiner Haff to Wollin Island; the Parnitz-Dunzig and Dunzig-Oder canals, together 1 m. long.
