Mark,

Provided we have no illusions that contemporary verse can be restored to its position as a major literary form (in the sense of having a widespread readership outside that of other poets) I think artifice is probably the way to go, but not the artifice of the past, or a pale imitation of it. One advantage that verse has is that its practitioners are generally devoted to high standards, the purity of the wellspring of language, whereas prose has a whole spectrum of standards, from high (though not necessarily convoluted) literary fiction and essays to low journalism and downright mendacity and all the degrees in between, and the word “writing” covers a multitude of sins. But “new” artifice will be a new form of modernism and will bring great satisfaction to practitioners and a few critics, but this sort of verse will not be necessary in the way I feel it was in past centuries, as a more distilled form of thought.

Janet,

Thanks for the compliment, but I am sure someone must have thought of this before. It was just comparing John Donne’s relatively long-winded groping in prose towards “No Man is an Island” that put the idea in my head. Admittedly the sermon contains more examples, more matter, but the LANGUAGE is quite different.

“PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am .”

Well written, of course, but Donne would have been quite capable of compressing this until it squeaked, had he wanted to. But the convention seemed to be that prose should be as windy and convoluted and “grand” as possible -although there was some excuse for a clergyman who had to fill a half hour on Sunday. (Sometimes the workings of the Lord required a certain amount of nifty footwork to put across convincingly) How do we know how good this prose is, or what do we compare it with, as examples of “bad” prose of the period are not usually readily available? Even unliterary, but literate, people wrote extraordinary well in previous centuries and were as adept at concealing their thoughts as at expressing them. I remember reading a letter from a young lady, writing in the eighteenth century in response to a proposal of marriage, and her reply expressed such gratitude and graceful compliments that the poor guy would have had to read it at least three times to realise she was turning him down.

Some return to this, rather than a shift of the chewing-gum to the other side of the mouth and a laconic “Forget it, pal!” might indeed be welcome.

Oliver,
It's true that in previous centuries many people wrote with admirable clarity and fluency. In the course of my work I had to read a great many letters and diaries of early settlers and explorers in Australia and New Zealand. They were galvanising.
My own great-grandfather left one chapter of a memoir. His complete autobiography had been stored in a bank by his friend, the bank manager. The bank burned down and the manuscript was lost. He was old and dying of cancer by that time but he struggled to rewrite it and succeeded in recreating the first chapter. The original is in the library of Otago University in New Zealand and a copy is in the New South Wales Mitchell Library. It is written like a captain's log (he was originally a sea captain). Although his education was modest he was able to express himself more vividly than many now who have greater advantages.
Janet


[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 27, 2005).]

You lucky ignorants! In Norway, they publish that stuff, shamelessly call it "prose poetry", and write rave reviews about how the borderline between prose and poetry is being challenged. I kid you not, good folks.

(That being said, other published "poetry" gets rave reviews because it "challenges our beliefs that poetry ought to be well-written text", etc.)

And then some wonder why books titled "poetry" doesn't sell anymore.

------------------
Svein Olav (The poet formerly known as Solan )

I'm delighted the denizens pounced on this topic. Lots of interesting comments. A sleepy forum has roused at least momentarily.

Odd that no one's dragged speechwriting into this discussion of prose cadence.

Julie Stoner

Carol -

How strict are you about the syntax of ED? I tend to err on the side of freshness when it can't be achieved within rules or reason.

Not sure I understand the question, Mike. ED as in Emily Dickinson? Generally speaking, I'm not convinced that freshness can't be achieved without the sacrifice of syntax. Syntax is simply a tool for communicating without which what a writer optimistically calls freshness may be lost in befuddlement on the part of the reader.

Carol

Carol,
The element we call "drama" may demand broken syntax. It often happens in Shakespeare and we all understand it. I think context is all--or rather context and talent.
Janet

Alan Sullivan: What is the role for rhyme and other sound effects in prose? - "an abundance of blank verse lines in English prose usually indicates an incursion of solemnity or melancholy". F Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited" story has examples (Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie)

Mark Allinson: If, indeed, modern prose has stolen all the vitality of expression once the exclusive property of verse, then what is left for verse to do that prose can't? - "the insistence that poetry partake of the lofty and sublime ... meant that poetry abandoned large areas of subject matter as 'unpoetic'. These areas were eagerly seized on by the newly enfranchized medium of prose ... In essence [the free verse reform] took away from poetry what had always been its distinguishing and defining characteristic, metre, and offered in metre's place nothing which prose could not already accomplish much better." (Dick Davis)

oliver murray: I think artifice is probably the way to go, but not the artifice of the past, or a pale imitation of it. - "An Oulipian writer is a rat who himself builds the maze from which he sets out to escape" (Queneau); "Oulipo: the continuation of literature by other means" (after Clausewitz)