Biographia Literaria: Thinking Activity
How to distinguish a poem from a novel, essay, or any prose work, has been an on going discussion since the beginning of literature. Several scholars and critics have tried to define the boundaries of both these literary compositions, with no final result. One such critic, originally a poet, was S.T Coleridge. Being a Romantic poet, Coleridge's ideas regarding poetry and the factors distinguishing it from prose, are at some point philosophical and somewhat ambiguous. Especially, his claim that, what distinguishes poetry from a poem is the poet's imaginative skill, is a characteristically Romantic idea, in my opinion. The general impression of the difference between a prose work and a poem is that of the arrangement of the words. But we can point out that it is often not so. We can however say that, the way of using language in both the compositions is what differentiates the one from the other. And yet, we'd be wrong, as we often have poetic prose and prosa...