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kasper
I think It vARies iN itS IMPORtance.
for sure. there is some;thing c
 logged/ in how people R
ATTached to those initial uprights, consistencies etc but I always (well in
once in a while)

as myself I mean ask myself

did People in the 18th century think in all those mercantile-capitalised
Nouns? do Germans likewise?

best

bright and shiny in the morn

dave

2009/6/18 kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]>

> 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
> >
>



-- 
David Bircumshaw
"Nothing can be done in the face
of ordinary unhappiness" - PP
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