prose essay def

Definition of Prose

What really knocks me out is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it.

Common Examples of First Prose Lines in Well-Known Novels

Examples of famous lines of prose, types of prose, difference between prose and poetry, writing a prose poem, prose edda vs. poetic edda, examples of prose in literature, example 1: the grapes of wrath by john steinbeck.

A large drop of sun lingered on the horizon and then dripped over and was gone, and the sky was brilliant over the spot where it had gone, and a torn cloud, like a bloody rag, hung over the spot of its going. And dusk crept over the sky from the eastern horizon, and darkness crept over the land from the east.

Example 2: This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

Example 3: Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Synonyms of Prose

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• Literary Terms
• Definition & Examples
• When & How to Write a Prose

I. What is a Prose?

Prose is just non-verse writing. Pretty much anything other than poetry counts as prose: this article, that textbook in your backpack, the U.S. Constitution, Harry Potter – it’s all prose. The basic defining feature of prose is its lack of line breaks:

In verse, the line ends

when the writer wants it to, but in prose

you just write until you run out of room and then start a new line.

Unlike most other literary devices , prose has a negative definition : in other words, it’s defined by what it isn’t rather than by what it is . (It isn’t verse.) As a result, we have to look pretty closely at verse in order to understand what prose is.

II. Types of Prose

Prose usually appears in one of these three forms.

You’re probably familiar with essays . An essay makes some kind of argument about a specific question or topic. Essays are written in prose because it’s what modern readers are accustomed to.

b. Novels/short stories

When you set out to tell a story in prose, it’s called a novel or short story (depending on length). Stories can also be told through verse, but it’s less common nowadays. Books like Harry Potter and the Fault in Our Stars are written in prose.

c. Nonfiction books

If it’s true, it’s nonfiction. Essays are a kind of nonfiction, but not the only kind. Sometimes, a nonfiction book is just written for entertainment (e.g. David Sedaris’s nonfiction comedy books), or to inform (e.g. a textbook), but not to argue. Again, there’s plenty of nonfiction verse, too, but most nonfiction is written in prose.

III. Examples of Prose

The Bible is usually printed in prose form, unlike the Islamic Qur’an, which is printed in verse. This difference suggests one of the differences between the two ancient cultures that produced these texts: the classical Arabs who first wrote down the Qur’an were a community of poets, and their literature was much more focused on verse than on stories. The ancient Hebrews, by contrast, were more a community of storytellers than poets, so their holy book was written in a more narrative prose form.

Although poetry is almost always written in verse, there is such a thing as “prose poetry.” Prose poetry lacks line breaks, but still has the rhythms of verse poetry and focuses on the sound of the words as well as their meaning. It’s the same as other kinds of poetry except for its lack of line breaks.

IV. The Importance of Prose

Prose is ever-present in our lives, and we pretty much always take it for granted. It seems like the most obvious, natural way to write. But if you stop and think, it’s not totally obvious. After all, people often speak in short phrases with pauses in between – more like lines of poetry than the long, unbroken lines of prose. It’s also easier to read verse, since it’s easier for the eye to follow a short line than a long, unbroken one.

For all of these reasons, it might seem like verse is actually a more natural way of writing! And indeed, we know from archaeological digs that early cultures usually wrote in verse rather than prose. The dominance of prose is a relatively modern trend.

So why do we moderns prefer prose? The answer is probably just that it’s more efficient! Without line breaks, you can fill the entire page with words, meaning it takes less paper to write the same number of words. Before the industrial revolution, paper was very expensive, and early writers may have given up on poetry because it was cheaper to write prose.

V. Examples of Prose in Literature

Although Shakespeare was a poet, his plays are primarily written in prose. He loved to play around with the difference between prose and verse, and if you look closely you can see the purpose behind it: the “regular people” in his plays usually speak in prose – their words are “prosaic” and therefore don’t need to be elevated. Heroic and noble characters , by contrast, speak in verse to highlight the beauty and importance of what they have to say.

Flip open Moby-Dick to a random page, and you’ll probably find a lot of prose. But there are a few exceptions: short sections written in verse. There are many theories as to why Herman Melville chose to write his book this way, but it probably was due in large part to Shakespeare. Melville was very interested in Shakespeare and other classic authors who used verse more extensively, and he may have decided to imitate them by including a few verse sections in his prose novel.

VI. Examples of Prose in Pop Culture

Philosophy has been written in prose since the time of Plato and Aristotle. If you look at a standard philosophy book, you’ll find that it has a regular paragraph structure, but no creative line breaks like you’d see in poetry. No one is exactly sure why this should be true – after all, couldn’t you write a philosophical argument with line breaks in it? Some philosophers, like Nietzsche, have actually experimented with this. But it hasn’t really caught on, and the vast majority of philosophy is still written in prose form.

In the Internet age, we’re very familiar with prose – nearly all blogs and emails are written in prose form. In fact, it would look pretty strange if this were not the case!

Imagine if you had a professor

who wrote class emails

in verse form, with odd

            line breaks in the middle

of the email.

VII. Related Terms

Verse is the opposite of prose: it’s the style of writing

that has line breaks.

Most commonly used in poetry, it tends to have rhythm and rhyme but doesn’t necessarily have these features. Anything with artistic line breaks counts as verse.

18 th -century authors saw poetry as a more elevated form of writing – it was a way of reaching for the mysterious and the heavenly. In contrast, prose was for writing about ordinary, everyday topics. As a result, the adjective “prosaic” (meaning prose-like) came to mean “ordinary, unremarkable.”

Prosody is the pleasing sound of words when they come together. Verse and prose can both benefit from having better prosody, since this makes the writing more enjoyable to a reader.

List of Terms

• Alliteration
• Amplification
• Anachronism
• Anthropomorphism
• Antonomasia
• APA Citation
• Aposiopesis
• Autobiography
• Bildungsroman
• Characterization
• Circumlocution
• Cliffhanger
• Comic Relief
• Connotation
• Deus ex machina
• Deuteragonist
• Doppelganger
• Double Entendre
• Dramatic irony
• Equivocation
• Extended Metaphor
• Figures of Speech
• Flash-forward
• Foreshadowing
• Intertextuality
• Juxtaposition
• Literary Device
• Malapropism
• Onomatopoeia
• Parallelism
• Pathetic Fallacy
• Personification
• Point of View
• Polysyndeton
• Protagonist
• Red Herring
• Rhetorical Device
• Rhetorical Question
• Science Fiction
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• Synesthesia
• Turning Point
• Understatement
• Urban Legend
• Verisimilitude
• Essay Guide
• Cite This Website

Literary Devices

Literary devices, terms, and elements, definition of prose, common examples of prose, significance of prose in literature, examples of prose in literature.

I shall never be fool enough to turn knight-errant. For I see quite well that it’s not the fashion now to do as they did in the olden days when they say those famous knights roamed the world.

( Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes)

The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin.

( Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë)

“I never know you was so brave, Jim,” she went on comfortingly. “You is just like big mans; you wait for him lift his head and then you go for him. Ain’t you feel scared a bit? Now we take that snake home and show everybody. Nobody ain’t seen in this kawn-tree so big snake like you kill.”

Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn. He cared nothing for boxing, in fact he disliked it, but he learned it painfully and thoroughly to counteract the feeling of inferiority and shyness he had felt on being treated as a Jew at Princeton.

( The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway)

Ernest Hemingway wrote his prose in a very direct and straightforward manner. This excerpt from  The Sun Also Rises demonstrates the directness in which he wrote–there is no subtlety to the narrator’s remark “Do not think I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title.”

The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now— James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it? No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

Test Your Knowledge of Prose

1. Choose the best prose definition from the following statements: A. A form of communicating that uses ordinary grammar and flow. B. A piece of literature with a rhythmic structure. C. A synonym for verse. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #1″] Answer: A is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove

A. It has a rhythmic structure. B. It contains rhymes. C. It does not use ordinary grammar. D. All of the above. [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #2″] Answer: D is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

You’re sad because you’re sad. It’s psychic. It’s the age. It’s chemical. Go see a shrink or take a pill, or hug your sadness like an eyeless doll you need to sleep.

“A Sad Child” B. 

I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.

The Handmaid’s Tale C. 

No, they whisper. You own nothing. You were a visitor, time after time climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming. We never belonged to you. You never found us. It was always the other way round.

“The Moment” [spoiler title=”Answer to Question #3″] Answer: B is the correct answer.[/spoiler]

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Your chance of acceptance, your chancing factors, extracurriculars, tips for writing a prose analysis essay.

As an English enthusiast, I absolutely love analyzing prose. But when it comes to writing essays, I sometimes struggle. Any tips or suggestions on how I can improve my prose analysis essays? What aspects should I focus on to make my essays stand out? Thanks in advance!

In writing a prose analysis essay, it's crucial to focus on strong organization and analysis, which will strengthen your argument and make your essay stand out. Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing a prose analysis essay:

1. Begin with a strong thesis: Your thesis should clearly address the specific aspect of the prose you're analyzing and provide a clear argument or interpretation. This will give your essay focus and help guide your analysis.

2. Structure your essay: Organize your essay around your thesis, using well-structured paragraphs that tie back to your main argument. Start each paragraph with a clear topic sentence that introduces the main idea and relates back to your thesis. You may choose to structure your essay chronologically, or by themes, motifs, character development, or stylistic elements.

3. Provide clear evidence: Support your analysis with well-chosen textual evidence, including direct quotations from the prose. Make sure to contextualize and analyze each quotation, explaining how it supports your argument and connects back to your thesis.

4. Analyze, don't summarize: Focus on digging deeper into the text, looking at how the author uses specific literary techniques, themes, and motifs to convey meaning. Explain the significance of these choices and what they accomplish. Avoid excessive plot summary, as this takes away from the analytical aspect of the essay.

5. Discuss diction and syntax: Pay attention to the author's word choice and sentence structure. Consider how these elements contribute to the overall tone and theme of the prose. Discuss any significant repetition or patterns in language and explain their significance in relation to your thesis.

6. Address literary devices: Identify and analyze key literary devices used by the author, such as imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and irony. Explain how these devices enhance the meaning of the text and connect to your thesis.

7. Examine character development: If relevant, discuss how the author develops the main character(s) throughout the prose. This may include looking at their motivations, actions, relationships, and growth or change throughout the text.

8. Consider the author's perspective: Keep in mind the historical context and author's background, as these factors may influence the prose and its meaning. Discuss any relevant biographical or historical information and how it relates to your analysis.

9. Write a compelling conclusion: Sum up your main points and restate your thesis in a new way, highlighting the significance of your analysis. Consider addressing any broader implications or connections to other works of literature.

10. Edit and revise: Proofread your essay for clarity, grammar, and punctuation. Make sure your arguments are well-supported and your analysis is consistent throughout the essay.

Focusing on these aspects will help you craft a well-organized and insightful prose analysis essay that stands out. Good luck and happy writing!

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• Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction
• Prose, Essay, Lyric
• Desirae Matherly
• Michigan State University Press
• Volume 19, Number 2, Fall 2017
• pp. 157-163
• View Citation

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• Desirae Matherly (bio)

Once I asked my teacher what he called what he wrote, and he said "prose." I still think that's a classy answer.

A Google search tells me that in the time of the Romans, prose meant "straightforward discourse," prosa oratio .

Various online dictionaries will define prose in similar terms: "written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure," or "commonplace expression or quality." Merriam-Webster goes further, offering clarification for writerly types who might be wrinkling their brows:

[End Page 157]

"Greater irregularity and variety of rhythm" is different from having no meter at all. In this definition, prose shares a closer correspondence with the patterns of everyday speech, which is nothing if not musical in the way it is performed, explored, and understood. Consider a word's register, its articulation and delivery. Think of words that are fun to say aloud. Ponder the ways we love to talk, about anything, to anyone kind enough to listen, and how, when someone is especially attentive, we invest "a greater irregularity and variety of rhythm" in our utterances and sentences.

Writing is often my indulgence in the belief that someone is on the other side of the page and I am thinking and speaking through it. Fortunately, when I write I am able to spend more time thinking about what I am going to say than when I speak. When we speak, the mood, the environment, the audience, the situation . . . all of these influence how our voices sound, and the emphasis we place on certain words.

If all writing were spoken aloud in its execution, we would most certainly not need punctuation. We would deliver our essays as oratories and epic poems aloud in auditoriums and taverns. Prose syntax and meter, were they transcribed, would have all of the flavor and intermittent opacity of Beowulf , the Vedas, and The Iliad . They would grandly involve their hearers, but confound their readers. We would, no doubt, elevate the sound qualities of words, and employ strategies to help the hearer make meaning of the words heard only once. And I would not be surprised if our prose would compress, become more like the half-lines and long-lines of spoken dialogue between intimates and close kin.

But composed language is considered, does not wander nearly so much as small talk in the household. A story told about last night's party will move elliptically into form, iterating and repeating lines for emphasis, lengthening phonemes in places where the semantic value should be underscored. Prose is more or less metrical, dependent upon content and audience.

General dictionaries will not offer a definition appropriate to serious consideration by fellow writers, but the one I find on Literarydevices.com might work for most: [End Page 158]

I'm content with this definition because there is a direct comparison being made with poetry, which is presented as its opposite, except in the case of this hybrid thing, "prose poetry." I say hybrid, but notice that its surname is poetry. Even when given the grammatical structure of prose, it is still poetry.

Wikipedia 's entry on the "lyric essay" remarks that "Proponents of the lyric essay classification insist it differs from prose poetry in its reliance on association rather than line breaks and juxtaposition."

This sentence referenced a missing page on Seneca Review 's website, which I quickly located and corrected, so there is now a temporary public marker that on this day I read the description offered for a "lyric essay," perhaps for the very first time. That's a little embarrassing to admit. Faintly in the back of my mind I knew the approximate origin of the term, had heard it mentioned in graduate workshops or in conversation with my cronies, or more recently, recalled its mention in Eula Biss's "It Is What It Is" in Bending Genre . [End Page 159]

In this fragmented, braided essay, Biss describes how she explains to her students that there isn't always a...

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Theory of Prose

By victor shklovsky, theory of prose analysis.

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Timothy Sexton

Victor Shklovsky’s Theory of Prose is a landmark work in critical literary theory that covers a lot of literary ground: Don Quixote, Tristram Shandy , War and Peace , and Sherlock Holmes all make starring appearances. The subject matter covers plot and style, features a wealth of quoted lines from the works of other writers and takes the reader on a dizzying journey from Shakespearean stage drama to the movies. Along the way, the reader is asked to confront some terms that are likely unfamiliar yet are essential to the text: literaturnost and ostranenie .

The first is basically a Russian word to describe the quality of something being “literary.” That is, something being worthy of literary analysis. Ostranenie is really the defining bedrock of Shklovsky’s theory of prose, however, and fortunately it is fairly easy to define as well, even though any definition must account for nuance that cannot be conveyed except through example. Here is basically what you need to know to discuss this book and the author’s essential qualities of theoretical analysis: don’t be boring and find ways to present the familiar in unfamiliar ways.

Easier said than done, indeed, but that is really the entire book boiled down to its absolute distilled essence. One of the iconic examples that Shklovsky forwards as an example of ostranenie comes from the massive Russian novel War and Peace . Although Tolstoy’s novel is about, of course, war and peace, the singular description which Shklovsky extricates is actually a description of an opera, which the author portrays metaphorically as “ painted cardboard and oddly dressed men and women who moved, spoke and sang strangely in a patch of blazing light. ” Opera is the essence of highbrow art and high culture and as such to read it described using such lowbrow terms is most assuredly an example of presenting the familiar in an unfamiliar way.

This is the path that Shklovsky pursues throughout his book. Whether investigating the detective adventures of Sherlock Holmes or “ornamental prose” of the symbolist writer Andrey Bely, what Shklovsky persistently presents as the ultimate sins of composing literature are repetition, habit, and boredom. To characterize something in a boring way automatically transfers that lack of interest to thing itself. On the other hand, one can write about something that is boring in a way that makes the subject lively and illuminating by seeking success in the art of lending it that sense of ostranenie.

As one of the premiere examples of Shklovksy’s conceptualization of avoiding habit, investing the familiar with a sense of strangeness and working diligent to avoid falling into the trap of repeating what has already proven success, he provides a comprehensive analysis of Laurence Stern’s T ristram Shandy . As he notes in the chapter’s commence, he has no intention of analyzing the novel in the sense of its narrative, but rather in the structural composition which presents that narrative in a way that still has the power even today to knock modern readers for a loop. He points to how “action constantly breaks off” and “is constantly interrupted by dozens of pages filled with whimsical deliberations on the influence of a person’s nose or name on his character.” Tristram Shandy becomes the ultimate exercise in presenting both literaturnost and ostranenie.

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Theory of Prose Questions and Answers

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Study Guide for Theory of Prose

Theory of Prose study guide contains a biography of Victor Shklovsky, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Theory of Prose
• Theory of Prose Summary
• Character List

Essays for Theory of Prose

Theory of Prose essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Theory of Prose by Victor Shklovsky.

• Determining the Central Difference Between “Fabula” (or, story, narrative) and “Sujet” (or, plot)

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Synonyms in Detail: prose and essay Usage & Differences

What context can i use each word in.

Learn when and how to use these words with these examples!

The novel was written in beautiful prose. [prose: noun]

She spoke in clear and concise prose. [prose: adjective]

He wrote an essay on the benefits of exercise. [essay: noun]

Her essay was well-structured and persuasive. [essay: adjective]

Definitions of prose and essay

Key differences and similarities of prose and essay

Good things to know

Which word is more common.

Prose is more commonly used than essay in everyday language, as it refers to any non-poetic writing. Essay is more commonly used in academic and professional settings, where structured writing is required.

What’s the difference in the tone of formality between prose and essay?

Essay is typically more formal and structured than prose , making it more appropriate for academic and professional settings. Prose can be written in a variety of styles and tones, making it more versatile and suitable for informal contexts.

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