Fanny is Catholic, Susan is Protestant. I think it's fair to say that Susan is more subversive on a textual level. Initial Caps tend towards hierarchical considerations and get in the way of subversive challenges, marginal attacks, etc., on authoritative texts & unquestioned inheritances (form, rhetoric & so forth). Fanny does not seem to let 'that stuff' get in the way of her writing process, where Susan takes it all head on.
That said, my impression is that, from a political perspective, they are both progressive and combative.
Stephen V
--- On Mon, 6/15/09, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: initial capitals
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Monday, June 15, 2009, 9:46 PM
Something along those lines, although I believe the development of minuscule
script for public manuscripts in the Latin alphabet post-dates the
introduction of parchment. Classical Latin poetry nowadays is always printed
with a lower-case initial letter but would have been entirely in upper-case
when originally circulated.
"How about Fanny Howe uses them, Susan Howe doesn't" as an answer,
considering they're sisters.
2009/6/16 Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
> 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
>>
>
--
David Bircumshaw
"Nothing can be done in the face
of ordinary unhappiness" - PP
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
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