What is the difference between VERSO and PROSA

When we write, we can do it in two fundamental ways. One of them will be using prose and another using verse. Both forms are valid and will be used according to what we want to transmit and how we want to do it. To better understand these two ways of expressing a text in this lesson from a TEACHER we will see cwhat is the difference between verse and prose.

In the first place, in order to know the difference between verse and prose, we must know what each of them are and what characteristics they have. This will help you easily identify them and know how to use them.

Definition of prose

Prose is a free writing style that does not stick to metric parameters and that is typical of genres such as essays, narration, journalistic articles, academic... It is the most common since it does not require the use of the rhyme or cadence to be able to conform. Because of this it is used very frequently in any written creation, be this the type that is.

In other words, prose could be defined as the natural form of expression of language

. Through prose you can express ideas or feelings naturally without adjusting them to certain structures and rigid rules. This is not to say that prose does not have its own standards. These will not be other than those of Grammar and orthography. Thus, prose texts, although they are more flexible than those written in verse, will always have to follow the guidelines set by spelling and grammar.

To better understand what a prose text is, we are going to see some examples from different fields:

• […] These fourteen men, the bravest of the brave, then decided to sacrifice one by one to stop the enemy, while their companions tried to advance. They did not discuss it, they did not cast lots, no one sent it to them. The former shouted goodbye to the others, stopped his mount, and turned to face the pursuers. He lashed out with sparks with his sword, determined to fight until his last breath, since being caught alive was a thousand times worse luck. In a few minutes a hundred hands lowered him from the animal and attacked him with the same swords and knives that had been taken from the defeated Spaniards of Valdivia. […]

This fragment written in prose belongs to Isabel Allende's book entitled Inés del Alma Mía. The text is narrative and displays a description of events. In the following case, which we are going to see, feelings and images are expressed that could well be part of a poem, but as in the previous case, they are written in prose.

• I touch your mouth, with a finger I touch the edge of your mouth, I draw it as if it were coming out of my hand, as if for the first time your mouth were ajar, and it was enough for me to close my eyes To undo everything and start over, I give birth each time the mouth that I desire, the mouth that my hand chooses and draws on your face, a mouth chosen among all, with sovereign freedom, chosen by me to draw it with my hand on your face, and that by a chance that I do not seek to understand exactly matches your mouth that smiles below the one that my hand shows you. draw. […] Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch.

But prose texts not only appear in the narrative, we can also find them in other academic, legal, journalistic, scientific articles... The following example comes from Official State Gazette (BOE): Law 29/1994, of November 24, on Urban Leases.

• The legal regime of urban leases is currently regulated by the text recast of the Urban Leasing Law of 1964, approved by Decree 4104/1964, of 24 December.
• The principles that inspired the reform of the leasing legislation carried out in 1964, according to the Statement of Motives of the Law 40/1964, were those of tempering the liberalizing movement of urban property to the economic circumstances of the country and to the demands of the Justice. However, the consolidated text did not achieve its objectives of unblocking the situation of frozen incomes. The aforementioned text also established a subrogation regime, both inter vivos and mortis causa, favorable to the interests of the tenant. […]

Although the language used is more technical, the way of expressing the contents is the same as in the previous texts: prose.

The verse is always subject to a series of rules and metric rules that must always be fulfilled. It is an elaborate form of expression in which sound and rhythm are essential to develop the text. The verse is the structure of poetry through which different structures develop through the measure, pause, rhymes or rhythm. So we can say that there are different types of verses:

Rhymed verse

The different verses rhyme with each other. That is, the structure of each verse presents a coincidence of assonance or consonant sounds. An example can be the following poem by Federico García Lorca entitled If my hands could strip.

I pronounce your name

In the dark nights

When the stars come

To drink on the moon

And the branches sleep

From the hidden fronds.

And I feel hollow

Of passion and music.

Crazy clock that sings

Dead ancient hours.

I speak your name

In this dark night

And your name is familiar to me

More distant than ever.

Farther than all the stars

And more painful than the gentle rain.

Will I love you like then

Ever? What guilt

Do you have my heart?

If the fog clears

What other passion awaits me?

Will it be calm and pure?

If my fingers could

defoliate the moon!

Single verse

These verses do not have rhyme, but because of their meter and structure they are considered poetry. Let's see an example in one of the most famous poems by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer:

The dark swallows will return

their nests to hang on your balcony

and again with the dawn to its crystals,

playing they will call;

White verse

They set a structure in terms of size and number of syllables, but they lack rhyme between them. This example by Vicente Aleixandre shows verses of 14 syllables, but that do not rhyme with each other:

I want love or death, I want to die at all

I want to be you, your blood, that roaring lava

that watering enclosed beautiful extreme limbs

thus feel the beautiful limits of life.

Now that you've seen how prose and verse are defined, let's point out what the fundamental differences are between verse and prose:

• The verse always meets a series of standards that are marked by rhyme, meter and cadence. These are rigid and must be adapted to them so that we can consider it as such.
• Therefore, we could say that prose is the natural form of expression.
• Although both can be used interchangeably, the most normal thing is to use prose to communicate, verse, being more elaborate and more rigid, it will be reserved for literary creation, in this case, poetry.
• Prose, for its part, pay attention only to grammar rules and spelling. When we write in prose we should not focus on the meter or the rhymes between words.

You already know what the difference is between verse and prose, you can continue to expand your knowledge in our section on Spanish language in which you will find more lessons like this.