I suspect you're on the right track. I remember being told once that
it went back to manuscript tradition, when vellum was too expensive
to waste on white space. The lines were written continuously across
the sheet, a new line being indicated by the capital rather than by a
line break.
Mark
At 09:15 PM 6/15/2009, you wrote:
>Fanny Howe most often 'caps' the inital letter of each line.
>I have an intuitive,no doubt wrong suspicion, that typographers at
>one early time could lay out long preliminary lines of type (without
>breaking them into verse lines) but would indicate the breaks from
>the eventual lines with a Capital letter.
>OR, may the Cap, in terms of verse as a kind of line by line music,
>helped initiate, say, the initial iambic beat of the line.
>Or, maybe it just helped the poem, say a sonnet, look monumental
>similar to the edge of a rococo column with those neatly chiseled
>Caps scintillating down the margin side.
>Yes, maybe it was a sign that Poetry (when found in print and book)
>was a Significant Presence in the Culture - a Portal and Oracle from
>which we was graced by News from the Muse(s)
>(those happy and/or serious goddesses that curl our hair while -
>when we are lucky - we get to write down their messages/visions that
>they whisper or sometimes shout in our ears).
>
>I sometimes use caps to start each line just to call attention to
>the idea that you can read, maybe ought to read the poem, in a way
>different than reading straight prose. Like listen for the music,
>pause for thought, or 'these words are material in the way of
>construction - of sound, etc."
>
>Stephen V
>
>
>--- On Mon, 6/15/09, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>From: Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Re: initial capitals
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Date: Monday, June 15, 2009, 5:53 PM
>
>Hal's answer is much better than mine,Max. I suspect Wikipedia might
>help. Anyway, I dont know why they were there, nor when it became de
>rigeur, but I do know that I felt terribly free when I realized that
>the poetry that excited me didnt demand it. I am intrigued to see, in
>some books today, poems that do side by side with poems that dont.
>
>Just another convention, with all the power that implies....
>
>Doug
>On 15-Jun-09, at 3:12 PM, Max Richards wrote:
>
> > A friend emails me:
> >
> >> a friend transcribing poetry has asked me about the convention that
> >> was dominant for so long of capitalizing the beginning of each line.
> >> she finds it very irritating and asked me why it was so. of course I
> >> didn't have a clue, and feverish examination of my library was of no
> >> help. (the earliest example of not doing it that I could find was HD
> >> in 1916).
> >
> > I emailed him back a vague reply, then said I'd ask PoetryEtc,
> > expecting a deluge
> > of help.
> >
> > Max in Melbourne
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
> >
> >
>Douglas Barbour
>
>Latest book: Continuations, with Sheila E, Murphy
>(University of Alberta Press 2006)
>
>Is that the flesh made word
>or is that the flesh-made word?
>
> Fred Wah
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