ABSTRACT
M. Jourdain is the main character in Molière’s play, The Bourgeois Gentleman. He is a man of limited breeding who aspires to be a ‘gentleman’. He wants to write a letter to a lady he has fallen for, and seeks advice about whether to write in verse or prose. The distinction is new to him, and he is surprised to learn that ‘what isn’t verse is prose, and what’s not prose is verse’. When told that prose is used for everyday communication, his reaction is: ‘Oh, really? So when I say: “Nicole bring me my slippers and fetch my nightcap,” is that prose? . . . Well, what do you know about that! These forty years now, I’ve been speaking in prose without knowing it!’(1)
Except for the likes of M. Jourdain, everyone knows that poetry and prose are different. But it is not that easy to articulate what the differences are. Activity 1 (What makes poetry special?) invites you to think about these differ ences, and to identify characteristics of some poetry forms (NP).
