Prose
Related: literature - novel - prose poetry - speech - writing
Definition
Prose is writing distinguished from poetry by its greater variety of rhythm and its closer resemblance to the patterns of everyday speech. The word prose comes from the Latin prosa, meaning straightforward. This describes the type of writing that prose embodies, unadorned with obvious stylistic devices. Prose writing is usually adopted for the description of facts or the discussion of ideas. This means that can be used for newspapers, magazines, novels, encyclopedias, screenplays, philosophy, letters, essays, history, biography and many other writings.
Prose generally lacks the formal structure of meter or rhyme that is often found in poetry. Although some works of prose may happen to contain traces of metrical structure or versification, a conscious blend of the two forms of literature is known as a prose poem. Similarly, poetry with less of the common rules and limitations of verse is known as free verse. Poetry is considered to be artificially developed, "The best words in the best order," whereas prose is thought to be less constructed and more reflective of ordinary speech. Pierre de Ronsard, the French poet said that his training as a poet had proved to him that prose and poetry were mortal enemies.
The status of prose has changed throughout its history. Much of a society's early literature is written in the form of poetry. Prose was often restricted to mundane and everyday uses such as legal documents and yearly records. When a country's literature produced other forms such as philosophy or history these works expanded the realm of prose, but fiction does not often appear in prose until much later. Poetry is still often regarded as a higher form of literature to prose but the relatively late development of the novel offers competing and often superior examples of prose.
Prose was at one time synonymous with dull, unimaginative or laboured writing and the word "prosaic" has developed from prose to mean anything boring. Now the word prose tends to be reserved for particularly well written pieces of literature and even limited to small sections of a larger work even though prose still also means any writing that is not poetry. Prose that aspires to the highest quality but in fact is too elaborate and overblown is called purple prose.
Prose varies considerably depending on the purpose of the writing. As prose is often considered to be representative of the patterns of normal speech, many rhetorical devices are used in prose to emphasize points and enliven the writing. Prose which aims to be informative and accurate such as history or journalism usually strives to use the simplest language possible to express its points although this language often needs to get very advanced to describe a difficult issue. Facts are often repeated and reiterated in various ways so that they are understood by a reader but the excessive use of this technique can often make a serious piece of writing seem like a polemic.
In fiction prose can flourish and take on many forms. A skilled author can alter how he uses prose throughout a book to suggest different moods and ideas. A thriller often consists of short sentences with "punch" made up of equally short words which suggests very rapid actions and heightens the effect of a very fast moving plot. Conversely, longer sentences are used to slow down the action of a novel and give a panoramic overview of scene. Prose can vary to tell a reader how they should feel about events in a story; fear, humour, uncertainty, or to tell the reader about a character's age, intelligence, opinions or personality although dialogue is often excluded from being thought of as prose. There are many techniques within fiction and the mark of a great author is perhaps their ability to manipulate prose and even invent their own unique prose style to effectively communicate what they wish to say.
When a poem is translated from one language into another, particularly if it is an epic poem, the poem is often converted into prose. This is for two main reasons: not only does it allow the reader to understand the plot more easily but also the translator is considered to be exercising less unwelcome creative input if writing in prose. A translation should be an unchanged representation of the sense of the original but to impose the rhyme and meter structures of a different language is likely to significantly alter the poem. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose [Dec 2004]
Prose fiction
Prose [fiction] consists of writing that does not adhere to any particular formal structures (other than simple grammar); "non-poetic writing," writing, perhaps. The term sometimes appears pejoratively, but prosaic writing simply says something without necessarily trying to say it in a beautiful way, or using beautiful words. Prose writing can of course take beautiful form; but less by virtue of the formal features of words (rhymes, alliteration, meter). But one need not mark the distinction precisely, and perhaps cannot do so. Note the classifications:
- "prose poetry", which attempts to convey the aesthetic richness typical of poetry using only prose
- "free verse", or poetry not adhering to any of the strictures of one or another formal poetic style
Narrative fiction
Narrative prose Narrative_prose generally favours prose for the writing of novels, short stories, and the like. Singular examples of these exist throughout history, but they did not develop into systematic and discrete literary forms until relatively recent centuries. Length often serves to categorize works of prose fiction. Although limits remain somewhat arbitrary, modern publishing conventions dictate the following:
- A short story comprises prose writing of less than 10,000 to 20,000 words, but typically more than 500 words, which may or may not have a narrative arc.
- A story containing between 20,000 and 50,000 words falls into the novella category.
- A work of fiction containing more than 50,000 words falls squarely into the realm of the novel.
A novel consists simply of a long story written in prose; yet it developed comparatively recently. Icelandic prose sagas dating from about the 11th century bridge the gap between traditional national verse epics and the modern psychological novel. In mainland Europe, the Spaniard Cervantes wrote perhaps the first influential novel: Don Quixote, published in 1600. Earlier collections of tales, such as Boccaccio's Decameron and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, have comparable forms and would probably classify as novels if written today. Earlier works written in Asia resemble even more strongly the novel as we now think of it — for example, works such as the Chinese Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Japanese Tale of Genji by Lady Murasaki. Compare too The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.
Early novels in Europe did not, at the time, count as significant literature, perhaps because "mere" prose writing seemed easy and unimportant. It has become clear, however, that prose writing can provide aesthetic pleasure without adhering to poetic forms. Additionally, the freedom authors gain in not having to concern themselves with verse structure translates often into a more complex plot or into one richer in precise detail than one typically finds even in narrative poetry. This freedom also allows an author to experiment with many different literary styles — including poetry — in the scope of a single novel.
See Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature#Prose_fiction [Mar 2005]
Other prose literature
Philosophy, history, journalism, and legal and scientific writings traditionally ranked as literature. They offer some of the oldest prose writings in existence; novels and prose stories earned the names "fiction" to distinguish them from factual writing or nonfiction, which writers historically have crafted in prose. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literature#Other_prose_literature [Mar 2005]