Difference between revisions of "Poetry - prose"

Revision as of 10:41, 9 November 2017

Newcomers to English Literature sometimes need the difference between poetry and prose explained to them. In the simplest distinction,

• poetry is writing in lines - the writer controls where a new line starts
• prose is writing which begins a new line simply when the previous line is full.

So when you copy poetry, you have to observe the line-endings of the original, and when you copy prose you do not.

At a slightly more complex level, OED (2006) gives meaning 2. a. as "Composition in verse or some comparable patterned arrangement of language in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; the art of such a composition", which gives the idea of a general patterning of language. This of course includes the control of the line-endings.

OED adds the further detail that poetry is "traditionally associated with explicit formal departure from the patterns of ordinary speech or prose, e.g. in the use of elevated diction, figurative language, and syntactical reordering." This introduces a certain theoretical or philosophical argument that has occupied literary critics at least since the time of Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE). Historically, the discussion has been clouded by the root of the word in the Greek ποιείν, 'to make, create, produce'. To the ancient Greeks, a 'poet' was a craftsman (in words), and only in post-classical times did the term come to mean 'a writer in verse' Aristotle's own Poetics is about writers of tragedies, rather than what we should now call 'poets'. The traditional Scots word for poet is makar (= 'maker') - a direct translation of the Greek, and OED's meaning 2 of poet (marked as Obs[olete]) is "More generally: a person who composes works of literature; a writer", as its (Obs.) meaning 1 of poetry is " Imaginative or creative literature in general; fable, fiction".

Prose, by contrast, is the 'normal use of written language': that which is not controlled other than by the writer's desire to express the meaning. It may well be artful, but it is not controlled in the way that poetry is. This leads to OED's meaning i. b., fig., "That which is plain, simple, or matter-of-fact; (often with negative connotations) that which is dull or commonplace". This gives the verb 'to prose', whose predominant current meaning is "to talk or write in a dull, prolix, or tedious manner".

For a discussion of a related distinction, see poetry - verse.