Re: Metrical Stress, Feet, etc.

On Mon, Feb 09, 2004 at 07:46:29PM +0000, Ray Brown wrote:
> Yes - is rhyme really the only thing that distinguishes verse from prose?
No . . .

> Was my old headmaster right, then, when he dismissed 'vers libre' as just
> "chopped up prose"?
. . . but probably. :)

Verse is, IMNSHO, written under well-defined, easily-perceived
constraints, be they metrical or phonetic (rhyme, alliteration, etc).
The more constraints, the more difficult it is to produce an
aesthetically-pleasing result, and in this difficulty lies the art
of composing poetry.

Some object that my definition excludes, for instance, haiku.  Haiku is
written under tight constraints, to be sure, but the constraints are not
easily perceived.  One usually has to count syllables explicitly to
notice whether a given haiku actually adheres to the 5-7-5 pattern or is
merely close.  Whereas we can hear rhyme and feel rhythm without
devoting conscious effort to analyzing them.

So-called "free verse" is, as far as I can tell, prose with
randomly-inserted carriage returns.  Not what I consider poetry at all.

-Mark

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