Nope, the dictionary of the Rea Academia Española, generally accepted as
authoritative, has
1. Cada una de las breves divisiones de los capitulos de ciertos libros, y
singularmente de las Sagradas Escrituras. 2. Parte del responsorio que se
dice en las horas canónicas, regularmento antes de la oración. 3. Cada uno
de los versos de un poema escrito sin rima ni metro fijo y determinado, en
especial cuando el verso constituye unidad de sentido.
We can leave definition 2 out as not applicable. Definition 1, a verse as
in the numbered verses in the Bible, and 3, a free-verse line that
expresses a complete meaning, imply a degree of grammatical completeness
that we don't generally require for a line of verse. But I assume that the
term is used with all of the exactitude that we tend to use English
language terms, so that it probably means different things in terms of
practice to different practitioners.
Early last week I received a poem via email to translate for a bilingual
reading. I paid special attention to the line-breaks, hoping to create in
the English a similar energy charge. After the reading I gave the poet a
copy of the translation (he had only seen it in email), at which point he
smiled and said "you know I wrote it in versículos." The line breaks whose
impact I had struggled to duplicate were artifacts of the electronic
transmission.
Kent, I had intended to wait to answer your query about the difference
between versiculos and prose after consultation with that poet. But I post
this limited answer before we get too involved in a guessing-game. There'll
be more to follow.
I'd gladly post the Spanish and English of the poem, altho it's not one of
his best, but until I have the proper lineation there's no point. I'll be
seeing the poet next Saturday. I'll try to squeeze lineation directions out
of him earlier by email.
Limited time, unfortunately, so back to work. Two different public lectures
late in the week, for neither of which I'm particularly qualified. Some
people get a thrill out of bungee jumping. They should try something really
scary.
Mark
At 06:38 PM 5/20/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>do not consult the Spanish Dictionary, but the Italian one and
>destructure the word "versiculo" as follows:
>versi (plural of "verso") ?
>culo ?
>
>or you could accept the translation from Latin "small verse".
>
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