Word: prose
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Dates: during 1873-1873
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...reading college papers it often strikes us that some of the authors who supply the columns with poetry would succeed much better if they confined their efforts to writing prose. If they are gifted with some poetic feeling and a talent for versification, these abilities are sure to appear in writing prose, both in improving the style and in supplying the article with ideas which make it interesting in itself, without regard to the subject discussed. Too many having such talents imagine themselves to be gifted with "the vision and the faculty divine," to be moved by the same muse...
...such writers would confine themselves to prose, the result would generally be an excellent and harmonious style, which would charm by its melody, and surprise by the introduction of poetic thoughts, which, though not in themselves sufficient to constitute a poem, would still greatly enhance the beauty of prose composition. Of course we do not advise those who feel that they are best fitted for poetry to change their manner of writing. This only applies to those beginning their literary career, who as yet are not confirmed in any style. If the writer is really a poet, his talent will...
PROBABLY no one has ever attempted prose writing wherein he has endeavored to convey his ideas by metaphors, without feeling the force of Voltaire's complaint "En l'ecrivant meme l'idee m'echappe." And if this is true of prose writing, where words are not restricted, how much more must just be the complaint in the case of poetry, where, in the choice of words, sense and jingle seem ever to be having a Kilkenny cat-fight in the brain of the unfortunate devotee of the "Art of Poetry." And yet poets do unmistakably attain a skill in reconciling...
...leading prose article, headed "Offsets," is, however, of undoubted originality. In this the author has attempted too mighty a theme; some gleams of sanity are discernible in the first paragraphs, but, after these, we trace by gradual steps the overthrow of what may have been a mighty intellect...
...first fact about college poetry which strikes one is that there is a great deal too much of it. The maxim "Write nothing in verse that can be written in prose" is entirely disregarded, or rather inverted. The would-be poet, thinking that passable poetry is to be preferred to good prose, expends his energies in putting his thoughts into verse, with more or less regard for metre, forgetting that really good prose is seldom written, and that poetry of a certain stamp is always forthcoming, be the occasion a golden wedding in the country, a military dinner in town...