Thanks for all of these, Anny.
This last comment on Caxton and the use of caps - which I suspect is when the switch went over from the Gothic faces (as used, for example in the Guttenberg Bible) to the Roman faces. The faces add a new look with Aldus Manutius's "Aldus" italic face (whose compression made it possible to produce pocket size books for the traveling bourgeois) Ironically, Aldus' publication in italic of Virgil's "Opera" still maintains the convention of beginning each line with a roman Cap - definitely drawing attention to a "turn" in the line.
Another thought I have is that these cap's also echoed and formally re-enforced the large, often gold embossed and variously colored Capital letters that typically initiated the first lines of poems and/or sections of the longer poems.
If we switched the metaphor from the lines in a farmer's field, to the weaving loom (as another way or metaphor/analog for looking at the printed poem) the caps correspond to a knot or double loop that holds and fixes the start of a new thread going across the loom. The metaphor breaks down if it's true that you have to put a knot at the other end of the line in order to soldify the transition to the new line! But that I think is a problem for the contemporary poem in which each line (a la Fanny Howe) is started with a cap. I think Fanny is often interested in the disjuncture from one line to the next with which she shifts the direction and eye of the poem. Without a distinct knot or Cap at the end of the line, and a refusal to use a period, the poem then relies for its abrupt line break on the blank, marginal space and the Cap that initiates the next line.
I remember Cumming's big popularity in the late 50's and 60's. Many of the young wrote poems, correspondence, etc. without a Capital in sight - a kind of rebellion against all those rotten, ruling hierarchies, 'grammar moms' and the rest. It took awhile to realize the caps were a way of making distinctions, and added a genuine texture to the printed page. No Caps ultimately made for a flat playing field. All spinach and no cornstalks or sunflowers!
Stephen V
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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