One of the essential characteristics of poetry is the line break. It is the most prominent feature distinguishing verse from prose. Even though much narrative prose employs metaphors and is written ...

AMERICAN literature, excellent as it is by way of its poetry, is excellent much more by way of its prose. Received opinion, however, stands for the converse. Conscious that in emotion, invention, and ...

I HAVE seen it stated that, when Tennyson’s Princess was published in the United States, two generations ago, it was the best-selling book in the country, and that Patmore’s The Angel in the House, ...

TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. About the Archive This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online ...

In Arthur Quiller-Couch’s Oxford Book of English Prose (1925), there is a one-paragraph selection by Arthur Clutton-Brock arguing that the cardinal virtue of poetry is love and that of prose justice.

“The prose poem has achieved an unprecedented level of popularity among American poets,” writes David Lehman, a poet and the series editor of the Best American Poetry series, published by Scribner. He ...