Joanna said:
>> Parentheses is just a clever way of referring to brackets of either
>> description, and indicates no particular distinction between them. At
>> least, so I've always believed. I'm sure the Rodent will pitch in here
>> and correct me if I'm wrong.
... to which Mark replied:
> I can sense his whiskers twitching.
Oh, well.
I misread Joanna's original post and thought it referred to []'s. I think
in the UK, both those and ()'s would be called parentheses (as Joanna
suggests), but I haven't looked this up. Both are orthographic ways of
indicating a paranthetical clause. Or something.
But a question is how do you -- not necessarily pronounce them but signal
their presence -- when reading a poem? Not difficult, with intonation, etc.
More interesting is whether it is/would be possible to signal the difference
between square parentheses, rounded parentheses and Emily Dickinson's
dashes. I'd guess they would tend to all come out the same way.
But ... I can envision poems which would exploit the difference between
square and rounded parantheses. Except the difference would exist in the
written but not the spoken manifestation of the poem.
Which brings us of course to Concrete Poetry (specifically the sub-variety
Typewriter Poetry). I'd see this as the place where ( ... ) and [ ... ]
would be used, rather than among Mark's post-modernists.
(Concrete Poets do it in fonts.)
And then there's the question of how to pronounce the indentation in a
non-traditional unrhymed stanza.
As Ezra Pound didn't say:
Spring [...]
So long,
Gongora [... !
A Bewildered WereMouse
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