Who Is the Most Poetic Novelist?

[Jassy Melson]

My vote is for Thomas Wolfe. There are entire sections of his novels and stories--and nonfiction--which are pure poetry. In a way, it''s hard to describe Wolfe. Was he a novelist, or a poetic prose writer? I can think of no other novelist who approaches Wolfe in writing poetic prose.

[JBI]

Anne Carson. And George Elliot Clarke maybe.

[dfloyd]

Not Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Tergenev, or Pushkin, but Boris Pasternack.

[Alexander III]

I have read Wolf and to be honest am not a fan, here are some novelists who I consider to have written novels which are better defined by epics in free verse.

- Victor Hugo
- Flaubert
-Chateaubriand
- Manzoni
- Gabriele d'Annunzio

I would also mention Kerouac and Fitzgerald, though their works are inferior to those I mentioned above.

[JCamilo]

It should be easy no... Finnegans is a not petit prose poem....

[Silas Thorne]

Yes, I'd second Joyce, for this work alone.

[B. Laumness]

First of all, let’s try to define poetry. I propose this short definition: poetry is a combination of images, rhythms and sounds conveying a representation of the world, a perception of the beings and the things different than prose can produce. For example, instead of writing “A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye”, Shakespeare could have written “a small worry troubles the mind”, but he preferred a metaphor to express the idea, what is poetic and reveals an original vision of the world. An artist wouldn’t be called so if he used the common language. But the metaphor is only a rhetorical figure amongst many others, and these figures are only means, not the artistic purpose. Another example just for the rhythms and the sounds with Racine:

“Compagne du péril qu’il vous fallait chercher,
Moi-même devant vous j’aurais voulu marcher,
Et Phèdre au labyrinthe avec vous descendue
Se serait avec vous retrouvée ou perdue.”

The rhythm is created mostly by the alexandrine (meter of twelve syllables). The unusual disposition of the expressions also has an effect. Indeed, in a prosaic language, we would say: “Moi-même j’aurais voulu marcher devant vous” and “Phèdre descendue au labyrinthe avec vous”. You can also observe the rhymes that are a well-known process. Needless to say that this formal means elaborate a more subtle and powerful meaning.

The use of poetry in a novel may be inappropriate, because the novel focuses on the narrative and on the characters, so that poetry can make the reading less easy, require more concentration and therefore make the understanding of the story more complicated... if ever the writer has still in mind a story and doesn’t give the privilege to poetry. The use of alexandrines, rhymes and many images can even seem very artificial and ridiculous, and then you can see poetry and novel are two distinct genres. Nevertheless, there are novelists who succeed to melt stylistic and even poetic qualities with the art of novel. They put a great effort in the choice of the right words, in the flow of the sentences; they avoid the repetitions and the disagreeable sounds; they try to create a kind of music in adequacy to the narrative (or in opposition, let’s think to the superb poetic descriptions in Blood Meridian in contrast with the horror of the actions – but the relations between Beauty and Evil are fascinating). For me, Flaubert is the master of the “poetic” novel – are his letters to Louise Colet been translated in English? They explain a lot about his writing. I agree Chateaubriand is a very good stylist. Proust also has a marvelous prose.

But there are novelists who are great without having a poetic style. In his psychological and metaphysical novels, Dostoyevsky doesn’t really show poetry. Kafka has a cold, precise, analytic style, though his style is admirable.

[JCamilo]

First of all, let’s try to define poetry. I propose this short definition: poetry is a combination of images, rhythms and sounds conveying a representation of the world, a perception of the beings and the things different than prose can produce.

Poetry does not have sound. This is music. Or Theatre. Poetry is language pretending to have sound, just like a Michelangelo David pretends to be a real man.
And "Image" is complicated, as the only image poetry uses are graphic symbols named words.
Also, definition of poetry as something as different of what can produce is not a deffinition (the negative of something is not a deffinition. A fish is "Not a mammal") and is updated. Since XIX century prose can easily have words that "inspire" images, rhythms and sounds, as Finnegans Wake can be shown as evidence.


For example, instead of writing “A mote it is to trouble the mind's eye”, Shakespeare could have written “a small worry troubles the mind”, but he preferred a metaphor to express the idea, what is poetic and reveals an original vision of the world. An artist wouldn’t be called so if he used the common language.

Wordsworth obviously disagrees with you. And even yourself. Common language can be rhythimic, can produce imagens and sounds, fact is much of lyrics of popular music are like this.


The rhythm is created mostly by the alexandrine (meter of twelve syllables). The unusual disposition of the expressions also has an effect. Indeed, in a prosaic language, we would say: “Moi-même j’aurais voulu marcher devant vous” and “Phèdre descendue au labyrinthe avec vous”. You can also observe the rhymes that are a well-known process. Needless to say that this formal means elaborate a more subtle and powerful meaning.

Nice, lets see this prose by Guimaraes Rosa, a prose writer with stylization and capacity to emulate the oral language that no poet in portuguese ever did.

"Havia uma aldeia em algum lugar, nem maior nem menor, com velhos e velhas que velhavam, homens e mulheres que esperavam, e meninos e meninas que nasciam e cresciam. Todos com juízo, suficientemente, menos uma meninazinha, a que por enquanto. Aquela, um dia, saiu de lá, com uma fita inventada no cabelo."

The alliteration creates a rythim, with reference to an language. Also the use of past tense creates the feelings of distance and time travel unique in faery tales. The effect is a subtle and powerful as Racine.





The use of poetry in a novel may be inappropriate, because the novel focuses on the narrative and on the characters, so that poetry can make the reading less easy, require more concentration and therefore make the understanding of the story more complicated... if ever the writer has still in mind a story and doesn’t give the privilege to poetry.


Then go tell Ovid, Virgil, Homer, Dante... wait, did you knew poetry was born as narrative and novels are in verse?



But there are novelists who are great without having a poetic style. In his psychological and metaphysical novels, Dostoyevsky doesn’t really show poetry. Kafka has a cold, precise, analytic style, though his style is admirable.

Actually, Kafka gaves a lot of importance to the choice of words, the flow and the order they are put. He is very stylized, the begining of Metamorphosis almost as untranslatable as Flaubert. And yes, that is a flaw of Dostoievisky, not exactly a merit. But Doistoievksy prose does not define what poetry can be.

[The Ol' Man]

It's somewhat consternating that no one has mentioned John Steinbeck...
I suppose, for this thread, the most pertinent of his works might be
Cannery Row, in which he incorporates a poem into the work, and thereat
he works around it, still holding the mood of the part where the poem appears
in congruence.

As to your definitions of poetry, I dissent with the first insofar as it isn't
precisely a presentation of the poet's perspective of the world, but tersely
the poet's perspective, if even his perspective, but his slight modification
of what he gives witness. There is a subtle difference. (This isn't to serve
as a precise definition of poetry, but more my own alteration of the one
that was broached. It might do for now.) However, poetry,
like music, indeed does have sound. The most appreciable difference
between poetry and music, though, provided we're referring simply to
the lyrics of a song - set to music later - as contrasted with a poem, is that there is more freedom and room for experimentation, invention, and expansion in poetry. Perhaps there are different forms of concision in poetry and song
lyrics. For example, most songs are to the point, so to speak, they very
often cannot stretch a thought to the extent which is observable in poetry.
But this isn't to imply that the song is a failure because of this, but that
the song simply comes into being through working toward a different form of concision, a different criterion, perhaps. A poem has to walk on its own,
for the most part, whereas lyrics have the buttress of sound.

I would like to get around to reading the poets mentioned here, as I've
not read the better number of them. And have I severely overlooked,
or is there nothing on W.H. Auden on this forum? And if not, whyso?

I also advocate Joyce for this thread. I'm almost finished Ulysses, nearing Molly
Bloom's continual monologue, and it seems to have been written very conscientiously
and consciously. The cognizance of language, of encompassing every kind of phrase
of the time into the work he could conceive. It's interesting to note also, though
I should probably post this on another thread, how Joyce indirectly demonstrates to us
that Bloom and Dedalus are himself. It's covertly so, but it can be pieced together
through other sources if need be. For instance, on page 764, Joyce ingeniously
presents this unity to us, but how easily it could slide from us in a moment of
inattentiveness. He says:

"...Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence, Bloom reflected. Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything, a certain analogy there somehow was, as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the one train of thought."

and on page 783, if you are of an astrological knowledge, you might see a nexus
between how and what Bloom is described as and Joyce's astrological Sun and,
though less probably, his placement of Mercury.

My point is that, how he presents this knowledge, clearly yet covertly, how like
a fish it is slippery and often requiring interpretation, and the language it is
expressed in, I think Joyce no doubt wrote poetical novels.

[Virgil]

My vote is for Thomas Wolfe. There are entire sections of his novels and stories--and nonfiction--which are pure poetry. In a way, it''s hard to describe Wolfe. Was he a novelist, or a poetic prose writer? I can think of no other novelist who approaches Wolfe in writing poetic prose.
I've heard that about Thomas Wolfe but I've never read him so i can't say. The novelists who feel the most poetic to me, and currently come to mind, would be the following:
Cormac McCarthy
D.H. Lawrence
Herman Melville
Virginia Woolf
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mark Twain

And I would list them in that order.

Note: They are all writers in English because I cannot assess a writer's poetic qualities in a translation.

[B. Laumness]

JCamilo, I think that you misunderstood what I wrote in detail and as a whole, and therefore I shan't lose time in a long reply. Just three things:
1) I would change the word "artist" by "poet" in "An artist wouldn’t be called so if he used the common language";
2) I said "may be inappropriate", there's a nuance;
3) I cited Shakespeare and Racine precisely because I know their poetry is combined with the narrative, so Homer, Virgil... thanks, I knew it.

[JBI]

Just want to note Verse-novel is a form :p

[Seasider]

"Poetry is language pretending to have sound" Not true. The earliest poetry was written to be spoken, incanted or sung to the accompaniment of a Lyre...stringed instrument linked to the God Apollo. Thus the word lyric.

[JCamilo]

Seasider:

All literature pretends to have sound. Prose too (the name is also a derivation just like lyre), and to be honest, the earliest "poetry" was not written to be spoken, they are spoken before being written. The process modificated the body of the "text", creating the poetic forms which are clearly an attempt to mimicry the rhytim of the "oral" recitation also on paper. A poem must works first on papper.
As it goes, Plato's dialogues are also "written to be spoken", Shakespeare (or Tenesse Williams) plays too, Aespo fables. The fact I can read Don Quixote (and I will work) or transform it in a movie, meaning, adaptating to another medium, to another artform does not change what the literature is (Oral Literature is a different artform, I am not even confortable with the term but well). So, "having sound" is obviously not a trait of poetry. I left my Keat's besides my bed and his nightingale only "sings" when I read. (It should be enough to say someone deaf and mute can not sing, but can produce and read poetry). Poetry does not have sound, it should not be something applied to its deffinition, the fact that many poems have enough harmony to be put to music should not mislead us. As Paul Valery said about Baudelaire, his poems used colors like Da Vince paintings, but he never claimed Baudelaire was a painter.




JCamilo, I think that you misunderstood what I wrote in detail and as a whole, and therefore I shan't lose time in a long reply. Just three things:
1) I would change the word "artist" by "poet" in "An artist wouldn’t be called so if he used the common language";

It still as wrong: folk lore stories is art, use commun language; popular songs is art and use commun language; Cinema is art and use commun language.



2) I said "may be inappropriate", there's a nuance;
3) I cited Shakespeare and Racine precisely because I know their poetry is combined with the narrative, so Homer, Virgil... thanks, I knew it.

Therefore the afirmation that a Novel should not use poetry is not true, so it should not be used. Also, you mention metric, which should be "Novels should not use verse", but this is also wrong.

[Alexander III]

JBI just reminded me with his post, that in a discussion of the most poetic novel, Eugene Onegin must surely be mentioned, arguably the greatest russian novel to date ( arguably as Tolstoy is up there, but I would place Tolstoy Pushkin for the simple reason that Pushkin was to Tolstoy what Shakespeare was to the english romantics.

[mortalterror]

B Laumness: I am sure that Flaubert's letters have been translated. He has a lot of love in England and America. I would be very surprised if everything he wrote weren't readily available. What really bothers me is how neglected Racine is. You'd think he only wrote Phaedra.

JCamillo: From what I can glean from the internet, Guimaraes Rosa wrote a very impressive novel. However, the only English translation is out of print and I will have great difficulty in tracking it down. At first I wanted to scoff, when you compared his writing to Racine's, but there appears to be something to that claim. Thank you for recommending him.

Virgil: Here's a taste of Thomas Wolfe's novel Look Homeward, Angel

...a stone, a leaf, an unfound door; of a stone, a leaf, a door. And of all the forgotten faces.
Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother's face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.
Which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-pent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone?
O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
or

Each of us is all the sums he has not counted: subtract us into nakedness and night again, and you shall see begin in Crete four thousand years ago the love that ended yesterday in Texas.

The seed of our destruction will blossom in the desert, the alexin of our cure grows by a mountain rock, and our lives are haunted by a Georgia slattern, because a London cutpurse went unhung. Each moment is the fruit of forty thousand years. The minute-winning days, like flies, buzz home to death, and every moment is a window on all time.

For my part, I think that the language of Hemingway is close to poetry. It's like the sound of falling water, or blue ribbons in the mind. Most of the examples given so far for poetic prose are for prose that mimics a certain kind of poetry. You don't have to go very far back in history, say to the 18th century, to find beautiful prose which utilizes the rhetorical devices of that times poetry which sounds very different to contemporary ears. Poetry is not just metaphors and sensuality. That's mostly a Romantic era notion of poetry that persists to this day.

The wording of the original posters question is dubious at best. One might just as well ask who the most novelistic poet is. If somebody sets out to write a a novel and it comes out as poetry, then maybe they should be writing a poem. However, I would not be adverse to a discussion as to who the great stylists or prose authors were. And yet, I would open this discussion up to a wider range than just novels. Samuel Johnson, Francis Bacon, and Edward Gibbon deserve their due.

[Virgil]

Virgil: Here's a taste of Thomas Wolfe's novel Look Homeward, Angel


Thank you. That sounds over flowery and artificial, but it's just a short passage. I won't judge his writing without reading a novel.

I agree with you on Hemingway, and I'd add Faulkner too.

[JCamilo]

JCamillo: From what I can glean from the internet, Guimaraes Rosa wrote a very impressive novel. However, the only English translation is out of print and I will have great difficulty in tracking it down. At first I wanted to scoff, when you compared his writing to Racine's, but there appears to be something to that claim. Thank you for recommending him.

.

Guimaraes Rosa is certainly one of the guys that may claim to be the greatest writer of portuguese language and I noticed it, how little translation of him is avaliable. Vargas Llosa said recently the difficulty of translating him (he is adept to Joyce's word play) was the cause, but if we look Drummond or Machado de Assis also suffer from this.

I know the book you reffer, the awful english title which I forgot... If you know German, you could try to see it (Rosa always said it was his best translator)...

As Racine, well it was for sake of argument that you could not find in prose something as described, their styles are really different. Rosa was closer to Faulkner, with the regionalism of South American writer, the fantastic, Joyce word plays... so they are really far style wise...

[Jassy Melson]

This is the first time I've been accused of being dubious in my wording. I find the accuser's post to be humorous.

I find nothing poetic in Hemingway's or Faulkner's prose. I do in Wolfe's prose. And Racine was a playwright not a novelist. Of course all this is just my opinion except the fact about Racine

[mortalterror]

I find nothing poetic in Hemingway's or Faulkner's prose. I do in Wolfe's prose. And Racine was a playwright not a novelist. Of course all this is just my opinion except the fact about Racine

Woah, what a dubious post!

[katelbach]

Cormac McCarthy is an obvious one for me, having just read Blood Meridian. However, To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf was very beautiful and, as i'm half way through The Way By Swann's (still), i have to nominate Proust as well. Sure there are loads more i just can't recall as i'm at work. Albeit not working.

[Jassy Melson]

You can't win

[The Comedian]

My vote is for Thomas Wolfe. There are entire sections of his novels and stories--and nonfiction--which are pure poetry. In a way, it''s hard to describe Wolfe. Was he a novelist, or a poetic prose writer? I can think of no other novelist who approaches Wolfe in writing poetic prose.

When I was younger, I used to love Thomas Wolfe -- in fact reading Look Homeward, Angel was one of the works that got me hooked into language and literature. Wolfe was a favorite author of my father as well. So Jassy Melson, you can count me among those who enjoy Wolfe's work.

[Brad Coelho]

It's gotta be Nabakov. Stylistically, he just can't help himself ;)

[youngsquire]

You guys are forgetting Jack Kerouac! He gained much influence from Thomas Wolfe -- especially in his first novel The Town and the City.

In my opinion Kerouac, in many ways, is more poetic than Wolf. His free flowing prose style allows him to express his thoughts and emotions without taking the time to meticulously re-write -- which intern makes for very expressionistic writing.

So many current novelists and authors today are very communicative -- using very precise and explanatory speech, short sentences, and less vocabulary. Which is very consumer-friendly, but which lacks the musicality and fluidity that past authors like: Wolfe, Kerouac, D.H., and Henry Miller bestowed in their novels to relay emotion rather than merely thoughts and stories.

[Lykren]

I will throw in a vote for the obvious candidates: Joyce (although something about his style feels as though it fits better within the framework of prose), Fitzgerald (who is both elaborate and meticulous in a way that reminds one of his own favorite, Keats), Woolf, and to lesser degrees Waugh, Conrad, and Hardy. Though they are all primarily novelists (with the possible exception of Hardy), those authors seem to me to have taken on stylistics traits which are usually identified with poets.

As JBI mentioned, we should not exclude the genre of verse-novel, and so should most definitely include Anne Carson. I recently read her verse-novel Autobiography of Red, which must contain some of the most powerful metaphors I've ever come across.

[WICKES]

Virginia Woolf: try 'The Waves' (which Woolf called a 'playpoem' rather than a novel) and 'Orlando'.

[Vota]

Of what I have read so far, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Nabokov, and Melville seem the most poetic out of the works I have read.

[Whosis]

If stream-of-consciousness was permitted for poetic talent, James Joyce and Jack Kerouac would seem likely candidates. It originated with Joyce, even though I'm sure dozens of poets have taken advantage of it.