Definition:
Palinode (Gk meaning ‘singing over again’) is a poem in which a poet retracts or counter-balances a statement made in his earlier poem.
Examples:
- The first palinode was a lyric by the Greek poet Stesichorus (c. 640-655 BC) in which he withdrew his attack on Helen as the cause of the Trojan war.
- Ovid is supposed to have written his Remedia Amoris in order to retract his Ars Amatoria.
- A well-known instance of a palinode in English literature is Geoffrey Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women (c. 1372–86), written to atone for the story of the false Criseyde in his poem Troilus and Criseyde.
Also read; Prose poem; definition and famous examples