Showing posts with label prose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prose. Show all posts

Thursday, January 12, 2012

But snow is prettier.

"Because You Asked about the Line Between Prose and Poetry" - Howard Nemerov

Nemerov uses a nice rhyme scheme here. I like those. I know people like to be all fancy and say, "Not all poetry has to rhyme," blah blah blah, but I think it's nice when they do. Even though it's gotten a lot less impressive since the dawn of rhyming dictionaries.

I'm not sure why he has it structured so. ABAB CC. That's weird. Maybe it's a thing. Someone should tell me.

But Nemerov seems to liken the difference between prose and poetry to the difference between freezing drizzle and snow. In other words, it's a fine line. But snow is prettier.


"So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane." - Looking for Alaska by John Green

Thursday, January 20, 2011

By the power of Greyskull!

Weird. Weird weird weird. But that was my favorite part of the play so far. I always use "ZOUNDZ!" as an exclamation of sorts--an interjection, if you will. For these Othello guys, it means: Corruption of by his wounds, referring to the wounds of Christ (used as a mild oath). <-- http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/xOthello.html#Notes

My font changed, and I am not fixing it >=[.

But yes, I am here today to complain about Shakespeare's ridiculous lexicography. I'm actually grateful for the "'Zounds," which has evolved quite nicely to my benefit, but I protest the footnote that explained that nephews are actually grandsons. I most certainly do not have two grandsons and one more on the way.

Also, we talked in class on Wednesday about the significance of Shakespeare's switching to prose. We speculated that he was probably trying to make that part stand out, and maybe he was experimenting a bit, because writing in iambic pentameter was just kind of what people did back then. But why? Did people speak in iambic pentameter? One time, I went around only speaking in haikus for a little while. It was difficult.