Prose vs Verse

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Prose vs Verse
Writers, literature students, and literary buffs in general have encountered so many types of writing since they have to know what they are reading, what they are writing, and how they are supposed to write. Different writers have different writing styles as seen in our colourful literary history full of poems, novels, and short stories. Two of these types that writers and readers alike have definitely encountered so many times are prose and verse. Although these are familiar words for literary buffs, it might not be easy to digest for those who do not read much. What exactly is the difference between a prose and a verse?

Prose is mainly a type of writing where there are no clear rules. For instance, we have the haiku where each line has to have a certain number of syllables, or some poems where the last words should rhyme. Prose does not really follow certain rules. Essentially, it is free writing. Writing prose is similar to normally writing something down. However, writers argue that prose is still beautifully crafted, as good writers have a knack for combining words together, making prose sound beautiful.

Prose is usually utilized in novels, short literary pieces, speeches, and the like.. With prose, readers can read the sentences formed out loud without having to take note of accents, stressing, and rhythm, since it is technically like speaking normally.

A verse, on the other hand, needs a certain amount of meticulous composition that prose generally lacks. There are certain things to take into consideration when developing a verse, namely the metric syllables and rhythm of the sentence. Writers also have to take into consideration how these are read out loud, taking into account pauses and accents. This is where the texture of the verse comes from– its rhythm, metric syllable, accents, stresses, and pauses. There is also such as thing as free verse, which is not as meticulous, but it is not as free as writing prose. A free verse still needs to have a rhythm in it to be called a verse.

Popular users of verses and poetry in general are, of course, Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. In general, anything that is not written freely, so to speak, or any text that seems to follow a certain format is considered a verse.

The use of prose or verse in literature is a question of whether or not it is appropriate to the storyline or not. People might find prose easier to do since there are no rhythmic patterns to think of, but sometimes, verse can really bring out the emotion of the literary work, given that it is more refined and melodic, to some extent. Of course, writers also take into consideration their own writing style since some people find it harder to strengthen their message through prose and some are more expressive through verse. Writers also try to experiment with both by mixing and matching to create their own style, and perhaps, find a better way to create and tell a story.