Robin Hamilton:
> Also, for a deliberate juxtposition of "prose" and "verse", Dante's _Vita
> Nuova_. And, in English, Gascoigne in (I think) _The Adventures of Master
> F.J._.
Yes, the Dante is really to the point, I think. The Gascoigne's completely
new to me; I'll check it out, if I can find a copy of the cursed thing.
> Further, Romeo and Juliet swapping parts of a sonnet in the middle of a
> dance -- K, the norm here is iambpent, but the rhyme/unrhymed split carries
> the same weight, nah?
Not exactly the same, I'd say, but certainly similar, and it sounds like a
nice example, which, also, I'll have to go check. (No brain-cells left, no
memory, who's this Romeo person anyway?) While I'd like not to lose the
specificity of my haibun question (I think Kent Johnson also asked about
haibun here, a couple of years back), I must admit you've short-circuited
through here to much of my nub: the possibilities from interweaving genres
(is that even the right term?) - rhymed/unrhymed; Shakespeare's prose/verse
switches; classical opera's aria/recitative; the prose/verse alternations of
middle Irish Buile Suibhne or Agallamh na Senorach (accents omitted). Or
what about discursive "academic" prose which quotes verse examples (if I
remember aright, Borges' Tlon, Uqbar plays with this a little). I'm sure
there are umpteen other achieved examples, which raise questions as to who's
working with these interweavings now. I'm most interested in haibun because
the transitions are *sharp*; obviously, post Ulysses at least, 'standard'
prose can sustain repeated transitions, but they tend to be gradual.
(Generalization alert)
Incidentally, is anybody familiar with the work of Hans Artmann? There's a
couple of pieces by him in Friebert/Young prose poetry anthology, Models of
the Universe, and they just leave me wanting more . . .
> "I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering
> among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through
> the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for
> the sleepers in that quiet earth."
Ah, Robin, keep talking like that and I'll buy you a bottle. Words at will
is what it is you have.
Trevor
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