<snip>
I'd say lineation was the syntax of silent reading. Part of a larger shift
in the balance between the auditory and the visual.[CW]
This eludes me entirely. For me the poem on the page, whether verse or
prose, is a text for reading out loud, or at least subvocalization. Like
sheetmusic. Potential until performed.[MW]
<snip>
No quarrels with subvocalisation. Or with hearing the text as one reads.
I was thinking rather of the historical shift into silent reading, so that
we don't now sit in our carrels speaking the text aloud. The point to be
explained being that prose and verse were both unlineated and then the
latter was.
But it's not a verse/prose distinction exactly. Cf the shrinking paragraph v
Henry James and dictation. If that's not too broad a brush.
CW
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