This is another of my index posts. The following is from the back of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations:
all for prose and verse CAREW
All that is not prose is verse MOL
as well written as prose POUNDdiffers in nothing from prose GRAY
for discourse and nearest prose DRYD
Good prose is like a window-pane ORW
I love thee in prose PRIOR
moderate weight of prose LAND
Not verse now, only prose BROWOf a prose which knows no reason STEP
other harmony of prose DRYD
pin up my hair with prose CONG
Poetic souls delight in prose BYRON
prose and the passion FORS
prose is verse, and verse BYRON
Prose is when all the lines BENT
prose run mad POPEProse was born yesterday FLAU
Prose = words in their best COL
speaking prose without knowing it MOL
They shut me up in a prose DICKunattempted yet in prose or rhyme MILT
That is all. Incidentally, anybody who has read the wonderful Me Cheeta, should study the index closely.
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Me, Cheeta was v v v funny for the opening three chapters.
ReplyDeleteThen I got bored. It was like hearing the same joke again, and again, and again, and again ...
The argument of this, as I interpolate it, is that prose is not a dirty word. There are those (Lew Turco) who call free verse "limeated prose" because it is not metrical. The distinction for him is between verse and prose, which are modes NOT poetry and prose, as poetry is a genre, like drama, fiction, rhetoric, etc.; any of the genres can be written in either of the modes. Anyway, free versers HATE this, because they hate being told they're writing prose, rather missing Turco's point. Etymologically, though, they're right, aren't they--the word 'verse' has to do with the turning of the plow, the rows of lines in the plowed field of the page, NOT the meter.
ReplyDeleteInky, can you bring your erudition to bear on this topic? Surely it's up your proverbial alley.
Did I write "limeated?" I meant, 'lineated.'
ReplyDeleteWell, you've lost me here, as I don't quite understand what the list is and have never heard of Me Cheetah - so I'm making my own entertainment by treating this as a 'found' poem - especially as some of the lines work very nicely: 'Moderate weight of Proseland', 'Not verse now, only prose brow', and my favourite - 'Prose is when all the lines bent'.
ReplyDeleteDon't mind me.
Moptop: Persist.
ReplyDeleteChris: I fear that searching for a definition of poetry is like my diet: fruitless. You can't find a definition until you've agreed on what counts as a poem, and you can't agree on what counts as a poem until you've found your definition. I will, though, knock up a post on the two kinds of free verse.
Miss Biro, It is from the index to the Dictionary of Quotations. You look up prose and are given all the quotations containing that word along with their authors: Milton, Dickens, Moliere et cetera. I didn't bother copying out the page numbers.
Dogberry