Aspects of Literary Writing: Prose and Verse

Prose is a formal way of writing. Prose is everyday thoughts or speech put to paper and contextualized in a formal structure. Those who write in prose, often focus their work on very formal, academic approaches to writing (assuming we're concentrating on overall good and decent prose). Literary prose is a combination of verse and the "proper" way of writing. Verse encompases literature in various forms, from the casual and eclectic to the classic and academic. Here, literary prose can be seen as a combination of structure (formal writing) with flavour (incorporating imagination into the literature).

Take, for example, a random idea. If we started to write extensively on this idea, just off the top of our head about (anything), really using our imagination, 'taking our hair down', writing as if we were talking out loud to ourselves, realizing this idea, bringing it to light... this would be a form of pure prose, and verse...

Now imagine what kind of text we'd have been writing in. It would be erratic and unstructured and, if read by another audience, would make little to no sense.

Literary prose is something of this nature. It's taking an untamed thought (or in otherwords, our imagination) and subjecting it to criticism in the form of structure. It's like a wild-child at play, being subjected to detention.

By taking any literary writing, or really any thought, and formulating it to fit a structure so that anyone would be able to comprehend the work.

Literary Prose is a construction of language, a tool that enables us to 'make sense' of imaginitive writing, to put it to pen and paper, appropriately.

When reading Sir Thomas Browns' "Religio Medici" the first thing that came to mind was the use of punctuation. The style is evident too, in the use of punctuation, in which the literature takes shape, creates character, and sets the tone. In each section it appears at first, as if he's writing run-on sentences. When you read his passages aloud to yourself, you realize that this piece of writing is articulate and academic, a good piece of prose. This is where I discovered how the elements of prose and literature work together to create comprehensible material.

Prose when combined with literary form (when diciplined) is like putting thoughts to pen and paper and appropriating them so that they may make sense to the reader...so that the reader is drawn into the feeling in the verse. His, is like a monologue that draws you in, where you notice the feeling and the mood in the literature. Here, Sir Thomas Brown seems deeply thoughtful, almost burdened by these thoughts, vulnerable, you feel as if he's discussing his feelings at free-will, that he's discussing them with you, that you happened to over-hear or stumble into a situation whereby you are overhearing something private, a personal contemplation.
Reading this, there's a feeling of validation, that he's perhaps talking aloud, reassuring himself of his thoughts, of his decisions, of his beliefs, or maybe he's trying to find the solution, maybe he's contemplating, weighing the possibilities...

"Sect. 5.--But, to difference myself nearer, and draw into a lesser circle; there is no church whose every part so squares unto my conscience, whose articles, constitutions, and customs, seem so consonant unto reason, and, as it were, framed to my particular devotion, as this whereof I hold my belief--the Church of England; to whose faith I am a sworn subject, and therefore, in a double obligation, subscribe unto her articles, and endeavour to observe her constitutions: whatsoever is beyond, as points indifferent, I observe, according to the rules of my private reason, or the humour and fashion of my devotion; neither believing this because Luther affirmed it, nor disproving that because Calvin hath disavouched it. I condemn not all things in the council of..." (Sir Thomas Brown, Relisio Medici). A discussion of his personal beliefs, of society and religion...he seems in turmoil, pained by thoughts, pained by his own beliefs, as if an inner suffering exists, a sense of lonliness resides in this work.

As seen in the work of W.H. Pater, a high level of imagination is evident. His strong use of the English language, the way prose is structured by using heavy, imaginative words and descriptions while in-keeping with the comphrehensibility of the prose and formality of the subject. Many characteristics in this work are inspired by religion, the church, and the cultural influences of the time.

MARIUS THE EPICUREAN, VOLUME ONEPART THE FIRSTCHAPTER I: "THE RELIGION OF NUMA" (W. H. Pater)

[3] As, in the triumph of Christianity, the old religion lingered latest in the country, and died out at last as but paganism--thereligion of the villagers, before the advance of the ChristianChurch; so, in an earlier century, it was in places remote from town-life that the older and purer forms of paganism itself had survivedthe longest. While, in Rome, new religions had arisen with bewildering complexity around the dying old one, the earlier and simpler patriarchal religion, "the religion of Numa," as people lovedto fancy, lingered on with little change amid the pastoral life, out of the habits and sentiment of which so much of it had grown.

Logical sentences are structured and heavy use of formal and descrptive language is evident, all which are characteristic of good prose. In this passage we can see the combination of literary writing (verse) with very formal subject matter or "information style" language (technical writing) of prose, which becomes literary prose as the two mate- the "sense and sensibility" aspect- the untamed, tamed.