STONE COAST SEMINAR
Lewis Putnam Turco
University of Southern Maine
Stone House Conference Center
642 Wolf's Neck Road
Freeport, Maine,
1:30 p. m.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
In this seminar we will look at the differences between “measured language,” that is to say, “verse,” and “unmeasured language,” or “prose,” and we will ask ourselves, where does “free verse” come into the picture? Given the definitions of verse and prose, how does one define free verse? What is the difference between “prose and poetry,” or between “poetry and verse”?
Required Reading:
Lewis Turco, The Book of Forms, A Handbook of Poetics, 3rd edition, pp. 9-54. “The Sonic Level” and p. 189, “Free Verse.”
Recommended Reading:
"Verse vs. Prose / Prosody vs. Meter" in Meter in English, A Critical Engagement, ed. David Baker, Fayetteville: University of Arkansas, 1997, pp. 249-263.
POEM EXAMPLES TO READ IN THE BOOK OF FORMS,
Third Edition
1. “Dirge” by Kenneth Fearing, pp. 10-12 (includes analysis).
2, “I Hear America Singing” by Walt Whitman, pp. 13-14.
3. “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg, beginning and ending, on p. 14 (students may look up the rest of the poem in many anthologies).
4. “l(a” by E. E. Cummings, pp. 16-17.
5. “She” by Russell Salamon, pp. 17-19 (includes analysis).
6. “Re” by Vito Hannibal Acconci, pp. 19-20 (includes analysis).
7. “On Gay Wallpaper” by William Carlos Williams, pp. 31-32 (includes analysis).
8. “Marriage,” by William Carlos Williams, pp. 188-189 (includes analysis).
9. “Cool Tombs” by Carl Sandburg, including description of “polyphonic prose,” pp. 225-226.
10. The beginning of “Kindly Unhitch that Star, Buddy,” by Ogden Nash, including definition of “wrenched rhyme,” pp. 88-89.
11. “The Death of the Astronaut,” by Lewis Turco, pp. 292-296.
The oldest “poem” in the Western world, The Epic of Gilgamesh, is also our oldest “novel.” An “epic” is a long narrative that tells of the fabulous exploits of a person who is often of superhuman stature and nature like the Chaldean “protagonist” of Gilgamesh whose semi-divine hero was the sovereign of the city of Erech in ancient Babylonia. It was written in Mesopotamia perhaps six thousand years ago, and it was written in prose, like the poetry of the later Bible, such as the “Song of Songs” and the Psalms of David. Here we have two terms that need to be explained right off the bat: “poetry” and “prose.” What is poetry? It is a genre, or type, of literature like other genres such as fiction, drama, and nonfiction.
What, then, is prose? It is one of the two modes of writing, the other of which is verse. How are they different? Prose is unmeasured language, whereas verse is measured language. People didn’t get around to measuring language until much more recently in history than when Gilgamesh or the Bible were written. How does one measure language? Depending on the language, one counts elements of it, such as syllables in English and other Western languages like Italian, or French, or German.
What is the difference between prose and poetry? Given these definitions, there can be only one answer: prose is a mode of writing, and poetry is a genre of writing. All right, then we need to define “poetry” and distinguish it from the other genres like “fiction,” which is the art of storytelling, and “drama,” which is the art of acting out a story, and “nonfiction,” which is the art of exposition, of explaining something. That leaves “poetry” to be defined. What is it?
Some people would define poetry as the art of song. Well, but Gilgamesh is a story, not a song, isn’t it? Yes, but before there was such a thing as written language, there was only spoken language, or in the case of stories and poems, sung language, and a story or a poem had to be remembered so that it could be passed on to later generations, so what does song do that the other genres don’t do? It relies heavily on particular language effects, such as chime, which would include rhyme and rhythm. We won’t go into rhyme and other mnemonic devices — that is, aids to remembrance, — like assonance, alliteration, consonance, dissonance, and so forth, but we need to discuss rhythm which is the flow of cadences in language. “Cadence” is the “modulation or inflection of the voice” such as that “implied by the structure and ordering of words and phrases” in speech or writing. For instance, if one writes a prose sentence such as, “I hear the cowboy singing as he rides his pony alone over the plain,” we can hear cadences, for certain words and syllables are emphasized more than others: “I hear the cowboy singing as he rides his pony alone over the plain,”
The first element in this sentence that is stressed is the one-syllable verb “hear”; the second is “cow,” the first syllable of “cowboy” because that’s simply the way we pronounce the word, with the stress on the first syllable; ditto for “sing” in “singing”; “rides” is another one-syllable verb; the first syllable of “pony” is stressed, but it’s the second syllable of the adverb “alone” that takes the stress, then back to the first syllable of the two-syllable adverb “over,” and finally the one-syllable noun “plain.” Now, if we take this pattern and repeat it, we will hear the cadences repeated as well, the rhythms:
I hear the cowboy singing as he rides his pony alone over the plain,
I hear the mother singing as she rocks her baby in its cradle,
I hear the shoemaker singing as he pounds the shoe upon his last,
I hear the sailor singing as he climbs the mast of his scudding ship,
and so forth and so on, just as Walt Whitman did it in his poem titled “I hear America Singing”:
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the plowboy's on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day — at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.
(Question: What should Whitman have edited out of the last "line"? Can anyone sing with closed mouths?)
This is a poem written in prose; it obviously has rhythm, but its language is not measured because Whitman was not counting the elements of the language, in this case, the syllables in his sentences; he was repeating a model sentence structure. But if we return to our original sentence, the first half of it at least, and we count the syllables, we’ll find that there are ten syllables in it:
I hear the cow boy sing ing as he rides = 10
Then, if we add the stresses, an odd thing happens to the word “as” —
I hear the cowboy singing as he rides —
we hear it take a stress, not a very strong one, but a secondary stress, because we expect to hear one there now that we have isolated the first half of the sentence and notice that the cadence seems to call for a stress on every other syllable, which gives us what we call a series of iambs, five of them in this case. And if we carry on with this pattern, it becomes clear that what we are doing is measuring the lines, not just repeating prose sentence structures:
I hear the cowboy singing as he rides,
The mother singing as she rocks her child,
The sailor singing in the howling wind,
The leatherworker singing at his last.
Both examples are poetry; one is written in prose, the other is written in verse. There is no third mode called “free verse,” because language is either measured (we call it “metered”), or it is not. Dividing prose sentences into “lines” by cutting them into phrases, clauses, and so forth, does not turn them into verse, because we are not measuring the lines:
I hear the cowboy singing
as he rides his pony
alone over the plain,
I hear the mother singing
as she rocks her baby
in its cradle,
I hear the shoemaker singing
as he pounds the shoe
upon his last,
I hear the sailor singing
as he climbs the mast
of his scudding ship,
This is a prose poem, NOT a “free verse” poem.
The point to be made here is that any of the genres of literature may be written in either of the modes, prose or verse. There may be prose poetry or verse poetry; prose drama or verse drama; prose essays or verse essays. Any of the genres may even be written in combinations of prose or verse, but the difference between prose and poetry is that prose is a mode and poetry is a genre. And the difference between poetry and verse is that poetry is a genre and verse is a mode.
A lively discussion ensued for the rest of the period which ultimately boiled down to defining the elements of the term, "free verse." We all agreed that the definition of "verse" was "measured language," and we also agreed that the definition of "free" was "unrestricted." Most of us agreed that "unrestricted measured language" made no sense. Those of us who could not bring ourselves to agree that it made no sense left the session brooding.
COMMENTARY
Annie Finch has written in the comments on this posting, “Thanks for coming to the Stonecoast MFA residency, Lew. It was a stimulating session that got people talking. And for the record, everyone there did NOT in fact agree with the definition of verse as measured language. Verse can be defined as "lined language," going back to the etymology of "verse" as simply a "turning." By this definition, a line of poetry can be a line without being metrical, measured, or counted. Such a line would be a nonmetrical line, and that is what is sometimes called "free." Thanks again for your visit!
Turco. I know that you do not agree with the definition I proffered in the seminar, but you were absent part of the time, and you were not yourself a member of the seminar. I do not recall that you were present when I asked the class if my definition of verse as METERED LANGUAGE seemed reasonable to them. I don’t recall that anyone disagreed. However, my definition was not invented by me, as yours seems to have been invented by you. This is the definition of “Verse” from the Oxford English Dictionary: “A succession of words arranged according to natural or recognized rules of prosody and forming a complete metrical line; one of the lines of a poem or piece of versification.”
I invite you to look closely at this definition and to notice how the word “line” is used in it as “a complete METRICAL line, and I invite everyone to examine closely the OED definitions of “verse” and “line.” As to the etymology of verse:
Verse \verse\ (?), n. [oe. vers, as. fers, l. versus a line in writing, and, in poetry, a verse, from vertere, versum, to turn, to turn round; akin to e. worth to become: cf. f. vers. see worth to become, and cf. advertise, averse, controversy, convert, divers, invert, obverse, prose, suzerain, vortex.]
1. A line consisting of a certain number of metrical feet (see foot, n., 9) DIsposed according to metrical rules.
note: Verses are of various kinds, as hexameter, pentameter, tetrameter, etc., according to the number of feet in each. a verse of twelve syllables is called an alexandrine. two or more verses form a stanza or strophe.
2. Metrical arrangement and language; that which is composed in metrical form; versification; poetry. Such prompt eloquence flowed from their lips in prose or numerous verse. Virtue was taught in verse. Verse embalms virtue.
3. A short division of any composition; specifically: (a) a stanza; a stave; as, a hymn of four verses.
note: Although this use of verse is common, it is objectionable, because not always distinguishable from the stricter use in the sense of a line. (b) (script.) One of the short divisions of the chapters in the Old and New Testaments.
note: The author of the division of the [prose of the] Old Testament into verses is not ascertained. The New Testament was divided into verses by Robert Stephens [or Estienne], a french PRINTER. This arrangement appeared for the first time in an edition printed at Geneva, in 1551. (c) (mus.) A portion of an anthem to be performed by a single voice to each part.
4. A piece of poetry. "This verse be thine."
Please note dear Annie and other readers, NOWHERE IS THE WORD VERSE DEFINED AS "lined language," OR “as simply a ‘turning.’" Nor is there anywhere a reference stating that “a line of poetry [don't you mean a line of VERSE, Annie? -- as I pointed out in my seminar there is nothing wrong with prose poetry] can be a line without being metrical, measured, or counted. Such a line would be a nonmetrical line, and that is what is sometimes called ‘free.’"
No, Annie, NOWHERE IN THE OED IS THERE A REFERENCE TO VERSE AS SOMETHING NONMETRICAL, but of course THERE IS SUCH A THING AS POETRY, WHICH IS A GENRE, WRITTEN IN PROSE, WHICH IS A MODE, as I was at great pains to discuss in the seminar. Were you there when I did that? I was also at great pains to point out that FREE (unrestricted) VERSE (metrical language) is CLEARLY A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS.
Your whole argument seems to be based upon the fact that you hate the idea of writing prose poems, so you (along with many others) need to have the term “verse” attached to what you (and I and many others) do. I don’t need the term. Poets have been writing prose poetry since the Epic of Gilgamesh was composed 6000 years ago…which is where I began my seminar, if you will look at the lecture I gave yesterday, which I handed you at the end of the session, which I sent you on several occasions over the past year, and which I have posted above, here.
Now I am going to turn that last paragraph into “poetry” by “lineating” it. I’m certain that it will go down in the annals of literature as a masterpiece (of irony if not of literature):
Your whole argument
seems to be based
upon the fact
that you hate the idea
of writing prose poems,
so you (along with many others)
need to have the term “verse”
attached to what you (and I
and many others)
do.
I don’t need the term.
Poets have been writing prose poetry
since the Epic of Gilgamesh was composed
6000 years ago…
which is where I began my seminar,
if you will look at the lecture
I gave yesterday,
which I handed you
at the end of the session,
and which I have posted above,
here.
Wow! I see what you mean, Annie! By breaking up that last paragraph into discrete lines I have obviously improved its quality to the point where anyone may see at a glance that it has ceased being merely prose and is now free verse par excellence! And unlike the last line of Whitman’s poem “I Hear America Singing,” I don’t have to delete anything to make it work!
You know, I bet I could go on doing this until I had a book of last paragraphs turned into poems by “lineating” or, as I have called it in The Book of Forms, line-phrasing them. Let’s try it. Here we go again:
Wow!
I see what you mean,
Annie!
By breaking up
That last paragraph
(And maybe capitalizing the first letters
Of each line)
Into discrete lines…,
Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Finch. Lew, Definitions of individual words change in different times and contexts (and definitions in prosody are, notoriously, especially shifting and subjective!), so I prefer not to get into discussions pitting terms against each other. (For example, it looks like the OED definition of a "verse" as a metrical line appears to predate the widespread development of free verse, which makes it at least a century old. Not surprising; a dictionary is a big thing and it takes a while to get around to updating every entry, and of course poetry is a frequently neglected topic. Another example: I suspect that what you are calling the mode of "poetry" might be what Aristotle called the mode of "lyric" (as opposed to "dramatic" and "narrative.") I have no objection to your using the word "prose" to describe nonmetrical poems: that's fine with me; However, I'm curious that your use of the word doesn't seem to acknowledge any difference between a nonmetrical lyric poem written out in paragraph form, and nonmetrical lyric poem in which the words have been broken into lines. No matter what effect the lineation has on the quality of the poem, I think this difference is real and does affect the way i experience the text on the page (even if I can't hear the difference when the text is read aloud). Is it true that you prefer not to include in your system of poetics any word that acknowledges or could describe the difference between a passage of nonmetrical lyric language written in lines, and a passage of nonmetrical lyric language written in a paragraph?
Turco. Annie, you do not read well and you don’t pay attention. I have never called poetry a mode. I called poetry a genre. The mode is verse, the other mode is prose. I deeply deplore your inability to listen to my argument and then your willful distortion of it beyond all recognition.
As to the OED being “at least a century old,” so is the term “free verse” which became widespread in English after 1912 and the Modernist revolution. The French “vers libre,” which is where “free verse” comes from is more than a century old. I took my definition from the current edition of the OED, the very one that everyone in 2011 uses at this moment. Your personal definitions of terms do not supersede those that are agreed upon by most of the English-speaking world.
As to my calling the “lyric” a “mode”: anyone who has read The Book of Forms, which apparently you have not done, knows that I call “lyric poetry” a subgenre of the genre of literature called “poetry,” the other subgenres of poetry being “narrative poetry” and “dramatic poetry.” Besides “poetry,” the genres of literature are “fiction,” “drama,” and “nonfiction,” which I clearly explained in the lecture I gave in my seminar.
And I do not use “prose to describe nonmetrical poems,” I use prose to denote one of the two modes of writing, the other one being verse. One may choose to write a “poem” in either prose of verse. You ask, “Is it true that you prefer not to include in your system of poetics any word that acknowledges or could describe the difference between a passage of nonmetrical lyric language written in lines, and a passage of nonmetrical lyric language written in a paragraph?” No, Annie, it is not true. I was at some pains to describe in my lecture and discussion what Amy Lowell called “polyphonic prose.”
You don’t listen well, you don’t read attentively, you do not argue logically, and you put your own words into your opponent’s mouth. Arguing with someone who doesn’t know how to carry a discussion forward from point A to point B to point C is an extremely frustrating experience, and I don’t plan to do it any more. But thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain the difference between prose and verse to your students, most of whom seemed to understand what I was saying.
Finch. Wow, Lew, you really know how to keep your cool in an argument. Got to admire that, no matter how I feel about the ideas. Sincere apologies for mixing up your terms. I should have doublechecked them. The definition of verse I was using is one I've used for years in my own work; it can be found in the Online Etymological Dictionary: verse c.1050, "line or section of a psalm or canticle," later "line of poetry" (c.1369), from Anglo-Fr. and O.Fr. vers, from L. versus "verse, line of writing," from PIE base *wer- "to turn, bend" (see versus). The metaphor is of plowing, of "turning" from one line to another (vertere = "to turn") as a plowman does. O.E. had fers, an early W.Gmc. borrowing directly from Latin. Meaning "metrical composition" is recorded from c.1300; sense of "part of a modern pop song" (as distinguished from the chorus) is attested from 1927. The English N.T. first divided fully into verses in the Geneva version (1550s). Verse was invented as an aid to memory. Later it was preserved to increase pleasure by the spectacle of difficulty overcome. That it should still survive in dramatic art is a vestige of barbarism. [Stendhal, "De L'Amour," 1822] Meter (counting )is not essential to this definition. Polyphonic prose, as Amy Lowell used the term, is prose and is not divided into lines, so it still does not answer the simple question I was asking you (about six times now, both in person and here).
Turco. Yes, Annie, I HAVE answered your question, you just don’t want to hear it. Here it is again, and it’s the last time I’m going to say it:
THERE ARE TWO MODES OF WRITING IN ENGLISH, AND ONLY TWO: PROSE, WHICH IS UNMETERED LANGUAGE, AND VERSE, WHICH IS METERED LANGUAGE. ONE MAY WRITE ANYTHING AT ALL IN EITHER OF THESE MODES. THERE IS NO THIRD MODE CALLED “FREE VERSE” THAT IS A BLENDING OF THE TWO MODES, although people have been using the term and making up definitions for it since Emerson attempted to invent a third mode, failed, and had to herald a prose poet named Walt Whitman. Either mode may range from “flat” language to “heightened” language. Most “poems” are written in what Wordsworth and others called “heightened language,” which is what Amy Lowell was talking about when she used the term “polyphonic prose.” There are older terms applied to heightened prose that are similar, including “euphuism” and “gongorism.”
As to your source, the Online Etymological Dictionary, I looked it up, and it is administered by one person, Douglas Harper, a Ph. D. who earned his degree in history from Brandeis and teaches at Duquesne. He is not a linguist, but he makes all the decisions as to the etymologies that appear on his web page. On the other hand, the Oxford English Dictionary is and has always been a collaborative work by many learned people in many fields. Harper’s page isn’t a lot better than Wikipedia, for which anybody can write, degree, education, or not.
No more arguing on this topic, Annie, you will believe what you wish to believe, which is the case with most people, including me.
Lewis,
I wish I could have attended the session. There was clearly much food for thought. I appreciate the logical steps of your argument, Lewis, and learned a great deal in terms of the roots and nature of poetry. Where would be without the OED?
Caroline Gill
Wales, UK
Lew,
Here's an email I had in my draft box from a couple days ago. I don't know that I would have written it today, but nonetheless, the invitation stands:
Everyone has had fun talking about your class. There were some suggestions to invite you back next year (maybe January 2012) for a discussion/debate of these issues between you and a "free verse poet" (perhaps Ira Sadoff). Are you interested?
Annie,
I would enjoy doing another session for you, but not with Ira Sadoff…, and not on this same topic.
Lew
