QuoteProject
Prose-it might be speculated-is discourse; poetry ellipsis. Prose is spoken aloud; poetry overheard. The one is presumably articulate and social, a shared language, the voice of "communication"; the other is private, allusive, teasing, sly, idiosyncratic as the spider's delicate web, a kind of witchcraft unfathomable to ordinary minds.
Joyce Carol Oates
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Prose and poetry serve different purposes in communication, with prose being more social and structured, while poetry is more personal and abstract.

In her exploration of prose and poetry, Joyce Carol Oates suggests that prose is a clear and straightforward means of communication, one that engages a collective audience in a shared language. In contrast, poetry is described as a more enigmatic and personal form of expression, akin to the complexity of a spider's web, which can evoke deeper emotions and thoughts but may also be elusive and challenging to grasp for those seeking straightforward understanding.

Themes

ProsePoetryCommunicationExpressionArt

In practice

Example use cases

In a literary discussion about the differences between genres.

More from Joyce Carol Oates

Of the widow's countless death-duties there is really just one that matters: on the first anniversary of her husband's death the widow should think I kept myself alive.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I never really knew I wanted to 'be' a writer, but I was always writing from a very young age. It became more conscious as an ideal when I was in my twenties.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
My writing is often a way of 'bearing witness' for others who lack the education and the opportunity to tell their own stories, so I hope that my writing won't be affected too much by my personal life.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.
Joyce Carol OatesRead

Similar quotes

The simplicity of photography lies in the fact that it is very easy to make a picture. The staggering complexity of it lies in the fact that a thousand other pictures of the same subject would have been equally easy.
John SzarkowskiRead
Stories are there to be told, and each story changes with the telling. Time changes them. Logic changes them. Grammar changes them. History changes them. Each story is shifted side-ways by each day that unfolds. Nothing ends. The only thing that matters, as Faulkner once put it, is the human heart in conflict with itself. At the heart of all this is the possibility, or desire, to create a piece of art that talks to the human instinct for recovery and joy.
Colum MccannRead
Let us create extraordinary words, on condition that they be put to the most ordinary use and that the entity they designate be made to exist in the same way as the most common object.
Gilles DeleuzeRead
Yield to that strange passion which sends you madly whirling round the room.
Virginia WoolfRead
Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.
BanksyRead
It is only by presenting those portions of the race in my pictures, in the light and backround of their true state, that we can raise our people to greater heights.
Oscar MicheauxRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.