A palinode or palinody is an ode

Ode

Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...

 in which the writer retracts

Retraction

A retraction is a public statement, by the author of an earlier statement, that withdraws, cancels, refutes, diametrically reverses the original statement or ceases and desists from publishing the original statement...

 a view

View

A view is what can be seen in a range of vision. View may also be used as a synonym of point of view in the first sense. View may also be used figuratively or with special significance—for example, to imply a scenic outlook or significant vantage point:...

 or sentiment

Sentiment

Sentiment can refer to activity of five material senses mistaking them as transcendental:*Feelings and emotions...

 expressed in an earlier poem. The first recorded use of a palinode is in a poem by Stesichorus

Stesichorus

Stesichorus was the first great poet of the Greek West. He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres but he is also famous for some ancient traditions about his life, such as his opposition to the tyrant Phalaris, and the blindness he is said to have incurred and cured by composing...

 in the 7th century BC, in which he retracts his earlier statement that the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

 was all the fault of Helen.

The word comes from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 παλιν ("palin", meaning 'again') and ωδη ("song"); the Latin equivalent "recantation

Recantation

The verb recant , and its derivative noun recantation, can mean:* To formally abandon a belief or a particular statement of belief, generally under order from an ecclesiastical authority to...

" is an exact calque

Calque

In linguistics, a calque or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal, word-for-word or root-for-root translation.-Calque:...

 ("re-" meaning 'again' and "cant-" meaning 'sing').

It can also be a recantation of a defamatory statement in Scots Law

Scots law

Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is considered a hybrid or mixed legal system as it traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. With English law and Northern Irish law it forms the legal system of the United Kingdom; it shares with the two other systems some...

.

Examples

Chaucer's Retraction

Chaucer's Retraction

Chaucer's Retraction is the final section of The Canterbury Tales. It is written as an apology, where Geoffrey Chaucer asks for forgiveness for the vulgar and unworthy parts of this and other past works, and seeks absolution for his sins....

 is one example of a palinode.

Late in his life, Gelett Burgess

Gelett Burgess

Frank Gelett Burgess was an artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclastic little magazine, The Lark, he is best known as a writer of nonsense verse...

 wrote this of his famous "Purple Cow":

Ah, yes! I wrote the purple cow,

I’m sorry now I wrote it!

But I can tell you anyhow,

I’ll kill you if you quote it!

Ogden Nash

Ogden Nash

Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...

 wrote a palinode in retaliation to his most famous poem about the dandiness of candy

Candy

Candy, specifically sugar candy, is a confection made from a concentrated solution of sugar in water, to which flavorings and colorants are added...

, and quickness of liquor:

Nothing makes me sicker

than liquor

and candy

is too expandy

Palinodes have also been created by many medieval writers such as Augustine

Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...

, Bede

Bede

Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

, Giraldus Cambrensis

Giraldus Cambrensis

Gerald of Wales , also known as Gerallt Gymro in Welsh or Giraldus Cambrensis in Latin, archdeacon of Brecon, was a medieval clergyman and chronicler of his times...

, Jean de Meun

Jean de Meun

Jean de Meun was a French author best known for his continuation of the Roman de la Rose.-Life:...

, Andreas Capellanus

Andreas Capellanus

Andreas Capellanus was the 12th-century author of a treatise commonly known as De amore , and often known in English, somewhat misleadingly, as The Art of Courtly Love, though its realistic, somewhat cynical tone suggests that it is in some measure an antidote to courtly love...

and others.