Sherry Chandler » Speaking prose

Speaking prose

When Molière’s Philosophy Master reveals to M. Jourdain that all his life the Bourgeois Gentilhomme has been speaking prose, he muddies a distinction Aristotle would have insisted on. Art imitates nature. As Northrop Frye puts it, art creates “a form of which nature is the content.” The artist may imitate nature more or less closely, for various purposes; but the most “accurate” painting of a mountain is not a mountain. A novel and a poem both imitate speech; neither one is speech.

—Charles O. Hartman, Free Verse. An Essay on Prosody (Northwestern Univ Press, 1980)

Possibly related posts:

    Prosody
    We all got rhythm
    More form and discovery
    Baudelaire, Second Preface
    Perhaps it’s purple prose, perhaps it’s poetry

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