I have a personal interest in this general subject, since I stopped
capitalising quite soon in my poetry. I've also thought a lot about that
phenomenon, in poetry in general but mostly as it applies to what I produce.
I might come up with a more sober answer when it isn't three o'clock in the
morning.
KS
2009/6/16 Anny Ballardini <[log in to unmask]>
> I found the following by browsing on the net:
>
> Alberto Rios, Department of English, Arizona State University
>
> http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/resourcebank/capitalizing/<http://www.public.asu.edu/%7Eaarios/resourcebank/capitalizing/>
>
> American poets often stopped capitalizing their lines beginning loosely
> with
> the second half of the 20th Century, a period generally associated with
> free
> verse.
>
> Why poets even did this has essentially been lost to us, beyond the
> historicity of being able to say that poets just always did this.
>
> The idea of a breath being taken, or a dramatic point being made, may also
> be a useful consideration in trying to understand line breaks.
>
> by Darksied on everything2:
> http://everything2.com/title/Capitalization%2520in%2520poetry
>
> capitalization stems from the necessity to
> emphasize<http://everything2.com/title/emphasize>particular words or
> phrases on paper that were accented by the speaker that
> the stories were taken from.
>
> This way of looking at an author's works was brought about by E. E.
> Cummings<http://everything2.com/title/E.%2520E.%2520Cummings>at a time
> when there was a formatting standard being developed. It was he
> that aided in stopping that trend <http://everything2.com/title/trend>.
>
>
> Undoubtedly the most complete answer is by Baron Wormser and Daivd Cappella
> in Teaching the Art of Poetry
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=oBj4n3Fb0dMC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=poetry+capitalization+why&source=bl&ots=5ChRHSShYW&sig=ddI93g8rKc8TukRQDEJVFMQjI-E&hl=en&ei=Lng3St_hOo6c_AbotOjdDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#PPP1,M1
>
>
> In fact, the convention of capitalizing the first word of a line was not
> firmly established until the late fifteenth century when William Caxton
> became the first printer of books in England. The capitalizing of the first
> word in a line hearkens to the roots of the word "verse" (from the Latin
> "versus") which refers to the furrow a plow or hoe makes in a field. One
> row
> in a field turns back to another row ("versus" literally means "turning")
> and the lines of a poem were likened to such rows. The beginning of a "row"
> in a poem was noted by a capital letter. Indeed a poem typically returns to
> the left margin so that the lines are uniform the way the rows of a field
> are uniform. This may seem far-fetched but it is a convention to which the
> majority of poets have subscribed over centuries. They like how the capital
> letter declares a new line; how it increases the sense of the ine as a
> distinct, rhythmic unit; and how it promotes a uniformity that igves the
> poem a decidedly polished look. No vagaries need apply.
> Many poets to not adhere to this convention. [...]
> This attitude toward capital letters in poetry, has become common and was
> pioneered by e.e.cummings in the 1920s.
>
> --
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.lulu.com/content/5806078
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star!
> Friedrich Nietzsche
>
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