The difference between prose and poetry.

Thinkings and poems 1 Minute

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2012/04/the-difference-between-poetry-and-prose/

Quote:

Prose is all about accumulation (a morality of work), while poetry as it is practised today, is about the isolation of feelings (an aesthetics of omission). Among other things, prose is principally an ethical project, while poetry is amoral, a tampering with truths which the world of prose (and its naturalistic approach to mimesis) takes for granted. Poetry creates its own truth, which at times is the same truth as the world’s, and sometimes not. Whatever the case, its mimesis is always a rearrangement, at a molecular level, of that axis between the “seen” and the “felt” (that coal chute which connects the childish eye to the Socratic heart), which, were it not for poetry, with its misguided elenchus, would remain obscured. In both classical and modern languages it is poetry that evolves first and is only much later followed by prose, as though in a language’s childhood, as in our own, poetry were the more efficient communicator of ideas

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Published by Katherine

Poetry writer and author

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5 thoughts on “The difference between prose and poetry.”

  1. I agree that most trades have their own jargon but this was heading towards the pretentious (in my opinion) 🙂 I can never get very far with Wikipedia articles on aspects of mathematics, either.

    1. Well,it is the thing in academia.My niece did English and her dissertation was full of them.She says she has forgotten it.It was that Michel Foucault and Lacan!I know sometimes new words are needed but it may be more to show off.Still I put it as a post because some like to know more about words

  2. I’m always wary of people who can’t express themselves in clear English but have to resort to strange words that are either ill-defined (like mimesis) or just plain obscure (like elenchus).

    I freely admit that i haven’t a clue what this is about (but then I’m a scientist) and am left wondering what on earth the writer thinks “at a molecular level” might mean in this context.

    Oh dear 🙂

    1. In modern academia plain English is not common.One point though, who decided where the dividing line is?Mimesis is a common word in poetry manuals but like me you were educated as a scientist.mathematician.Words we might think simple and plain may not be so to all.Where do we draw the line or should I say,build the wall?

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