Prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in their best order

Whenever someone says "I read books for the prose" its like they're saying that they read for the face value arrangement of the words as opposed to whats actually being said.

It makes no sense.

Besides that, by definition prose simply means "written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure.", and the vast majority of books are made of prose.

So even by a standard definition the idea of 'reading for prose" is fucking silly because what the hell else are you reading BUT prose? The very term 'prose' embraces everything you could find in the book.

So with this in mind, "reading for prose" becomes a game of puffed up redundancy, "I read books for the book".

literature is an art of storytelling, not of making up stories

>I'm gonna be a pedantic faggot and pretend I don't understand what people are saying. That's gonna make me sound really smart.

You can make up stories to tell them...

Prose is simply a tool a for storytelling.

Storytelling is a tool for something far greater, an invisible force of living experience that breathes through us all, a capturing of time and space in real or not real fabrics of reality.

Yea, because I should really have patience for idiots whose only value in literature is if the words sound pretty or not.

I don't disagree, infact I readily agree that storytelling is universal. Prose is simply one way it can be approached in literature.

Which only makes our favorite saying even more strange.

>I'm gonna keep pretending to be stupid. Is anyone impressed yet?

>I don't have any counterpoints, so I'll make passive aggressive comments like a bitch!

Stay meme'd kid

>Guys, guys, no, really, look how clever I am by faking autism.

I want to return to this. I see OP defined the terms in his own words, which I more or less glazed over. My own posting was in response to the general attitudes I see on Veeky Forums, and also to how sloppy so many are in defining what makes prose(/almost/ on the same tier as "what is art?" conversations). I'll give OP credit for at least making some attempt for the purposes of his thread.

order doesn't mean "left to right" -- well, the way you're meaning it, it does, but that's not how prose works.

Just because you read from left to right doesn't mean you grasp all prose.

Poetry isn't about order as much as it is about rhythm.

You are all sorts of wrong.

F-

Veeky Forums confirmed for best board to shitpost

stay autistic

>feels entitled to an argument

Change your diaper.

go on, i'm still watching

You're entitled to watch.

How did you know that I was the same person?

I was trying to be stealthy and make you think I was a different person.

You win. I know when I'm up against somebody who's too good for me to beat.

stop diminishing the possibilities of expression. Merit can be developed with a focus on either prose or storytelling itself, both to different ends.

Prose is the cinematography of literature

Poetry is gay

>Poetry is gay
breh you'll get stabbed saying shit like that

You're out of date by a century.

Prose = words in their best order
poetry = bad prose chopped up into lines

autism

>defining objects by their contemporary use, ahistorically
shiggity

Hanging from my noose like ehhhh

...

Good prose is the best words in the best order. Poetry is the same thing but with meter

>Poetry is the best meter in the best order

Prose is watching an old man slip out of his wheelchair going down the retard ramp

Poetry is power-walking away from the scene before you have to become involved with helping him

The pen is mightier than the sword: [ ] Bunked [x] DEBUNKED

prose = bad; poetry = good

surprisingly accurate for many occasions

kek

Can't accept that
Prose will always have a profound effect on the story you tell. If you strip a novel of it's prose the story will not have any artistic merit unless you use another form of storytelling (i.e directing)

severely underrated

What are plays

plays are directed

True, but a play can still carry power even in script form. Its pure character in action

>pure character in action
Plays are very acting reliant. In script form they are not much different from movies
Plus character varies from script to script, I can't really see a point in that claim

I really should have just said script. The point being that traditional literary prose isnt the only way to carry a story on paper. Lines of dialogue by well developed and well positioned charactets can be enough.

I can't really see how you're going to tell a serious decent story with no use of prose.
Of course you can write walls of dialogue with characters but then your story will have the merit of a court transcript.

I think merit in this instance is a rather loaded term( there are more than enough entertaining transcriptions out there). And at any rate it can be an interesting excercise

fucking lost it

user didn't say you couldn't, but the focus is how the story is told.

I agree with you on that. My point is that there's no such thing as storytelling without the use of prose (on paper)
And that is what literature is all about

try harder/10

I think focusing so much on how the story is told is a mistake. Telling a good story is hard enough work without style wank.

I enjoy stories that may not be the most "exciting" if they are told in an aesthetically pleasing way.
I understand people not enjoying style heavy novels though.