Why does free verse count as verse?

I think it was the other way round, Yes/No, he wanted to write a text with several layers of meanings. Joyce and other writers of the 20 C were adept of experimental literature. The important thing for them was not only what they wanted to say but how they would say it. They experimented with form, exploring different meanings of words and languages, often inventing their own grammar and their own sintax, thus creating multiple levels of significance.
Here are some interpretations of the first sentence of the text:
"Riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."
http://www.antimoon.com/forum/t6441.htm
I think that among other things, probably all those interpretations make sense, the sentence refers to the complex movement of the text itself, like the great river of human tradition which started with Adam and Eve, but also that smaller Dublin river they refer to that passes the Church of Adam and Eve. And he is warning that it is a circular and ciclic narrative where there will be repetitions. The great pulse of life including the smaller cicles of human lives and among them this Finnegan.
Yes, I think it has a "metastory" level, but the idea seems to be to defamiliarize the usual concepts of narrative, text and language.

Saying it is mathematical is just a metaphor. It is fine, but we should not be picking at straws. It is not meant to be a perfect relation, just a suggestive one.

Also, Finnegans Wake and Joyce - despite the huge problem the language itself in the work is for us - is hardly the only text that people read and cann't come with a meaning that is not ambiguous or agree with that. This works with Kafka, which style is very simple, yet there is no agreement in the world about the exactly meaning. And hardly something unread in art. Music for example (and since Finnegans Wake is a experimetation with sounds, it is very appropriate to remind of music) is not meant even to be decoded and understood to be enjoyed.

If Finnegans Wake intentionally had layers of meaning then it would not be related to what mathematicians hoped to achieve in the early 20th century. So my guess was wrong. They hoped that mathematics would be able to be constructed unconsciously, once and for all, by a machine and have no meaning whatsoever. "No meaning" and "layers of meaning" are opposite goals. The "metamathematics" texts would contain the inevitable layers of meaning that arise when different people read those texts over and over again each time a little differently.

The reason mathematicians wanted to remove human subjectivity from mathematics was to remove those layers of meaning that will inevitably occur when a human being is confronted with any text. If a machine (not a theoretically conscious AI robot) constructs mathematics it is like a washing machine doing the laundry. The clean clothes are the "mathematics". The human being wearing those clothes enjoys meaningful "metamathematics".

All stories, as I see it, contain potential layers of meaning which are recreated by the subjectivity of the conscious human being while reading the text. If a reader does not understand what an author wrote, the reader will make up meanings for the text which could be simply that the author is mentally ill or verbally abusive depending on how hostile the reader is toward that author.

Or they will say, as I once saw, that Voltaire in Candide wanted to postpone the idea that Ignorance is a Bliss. Voltaire defending Ignorance.

The easier way to say, is that the meaning construction is not sole dependent on the artwork/text, but in a interation with other chains of significance. They have a meaning (positive, valid, even if wrong).

It is also notable, the idea a text have layers and layers of meaning is old and the idea Finnegans Wake cannot be understood because of the language is different from Joyce word-plays has no logic (it has, more close to music, a language very few people can understand).

"All stories, as I see it, contain potential layers of meaning which are recreated by the subjectivity of the conscious human being while reading the text. If a reader does not understand what an author wrote, the reader will make up meanings for the text which could be simply that the author is mentally ill or verbally abusive depending on how hostile the reader is toward that author."
I agree with you and Camilo that the text depends on the interaction with the reader. But some texts permit a greater quantity of interpretation than others. Personally I prefer texts that defy me. Finnegans Wake is an extreme case, maybe the most extreme case there is.
Of course one must consider also the musicality of a poetic text. There is the flow of FW, the running of the river of words. But only musicality is not enough for me.

i would suggest there is a difference between having many possible interpretatitions and having many possible layers of interpretations. Its necessary a special kind of interation to allow you go for all the chain inside those layers, most people can only go as far to pass the literal layer to a metaphorical or moral level, in a very basic way.

I like to separate the text itself from meaning. The text is objective. Meaning is subjective. The text is ink on paper or bits in some computer memory. No meaning is stored there. Meaning only exists when a human being reads the text. It vanishes once the human forgets what was read. The next time the human reads the text a new meaning is created. My motivation for this is to make sure a computer is not considered conscious by simply manipulating texts. See Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment.

So the layers of interpretations or interpretations or anything to do with meaning don't exist until there is a human being who creates them. This is going to make the meaning of the text relative to the human being doing the reading, but we are communal beings and so we can more or less agree on the meanings we experience when reading a text.

I only mention the above to see if either of you agree with that.

The text is neither objective or subjective, it is nothing. It is like saying a chair is objective. You are talking about an object. A symbol is always conected with his meanings - and meaning is different from interpretation and the meaning of a symbol only exists as process of interpretation of someone else.. I also would say every meaning is objective (even if wrong). In semiotics (semiology, depending the side of atlantic) everything is a process. There are parts, but they need to work together. Futhermore, the word "chair" has (several) meanings, all of them depend on the interaction - you must not forget there is two humans in this process. The "author" is also responsable for interpretations.

Take the example I gave about Candide and Voltaire. A person considered that the meaning of the text is "Ignorance is a bliss". His conclusion was objective: a literal interpretation of the text allows this. It is wrong, because he failed to consider the use of irony, he had no information about voltaire, etc. His interpretation is not subjective (nor we should claim that because the interpretation depends on personal background that is is subjective), nor it was mine. Of course, someone's reaction to a text may be guided by emotions rather than be analytical. Also, while all interpretations are personal (so subjective, even if logical, but in this case not the oposite of objective), all meanings of symbols are also variable according the context. So i think it is a bit pointless to bring this difference.

We have also texts that are ambiguous - Nothing better than Dante - and will have several meanings because he build the texts that way and with this will allow several interpretations.

Not quite, Yes/No. I think the written word also carries its load of meaning according to several factors like the language and the country in which it was produced, the background of the writer, the density of the text itself (its layers of significance- for example some texts are just read on a literal level, others, usually literary texts are open to several interpretation).
I believe good literary texts have a kind of life and a history of their own. What, for example, would make a Shakespeare or a Cervantes text survive so many centuries?

Just so you know what motivates my questions: I want to make sure that a computer manipulating texts is not considered conscious just because of this manipulation, that is, the computer is not manipulating "meaning", only texts.

However, I normally think of a text as "meaningful" or not as a text, but I think that is a cultural mistake that I make and so I am trying on the opposite idea: no text is meaningful in itself.

Both of you mentioned the author or writer, but the writer could be a computer. For example, the computer could generate a random number and that number linked to a set of strings that would be the subject of the sentence. In a similar way a verb could be selected and then perhaps an object. Now we have a sentence. A human being reads the computer generated sentence: "I eat bread." When does this text become "meaningful"? I would say the text becomes meaningful only when a human reads it (or writes it or thinks it).

What I think both of you are saying is that meaning is something shared. I agree with that. It is not something peculiar to me as an individual when I read the text. Then we ask ourselves, if meaning is shared, where is this meaning that we all can see and agree upon? We are tempted to say that meaning is in the text because a text is easy to point to, but is that correct? We don't have to write down everything that has meaning. We could just be talking to each other and use sound? In that case is meaning in the sound waves? I would think it is not there either and yet we agree enough on the meaning of the words and so it is not something only I or only you know.

"Just so you know what motivates my questions: I want to make sure that a computer manipulating texts is not considered conscious just because of this manipulation, that is, the computer is not manipulating "meaning", only texts."
I certainly would not consider a computer conscious in any way. To my mind a computer is a machine like a car or a fridge that merely does what it is programmed to and instructed to do and it is widely subject to mechanical and eletrical failings. In certain distopical context (inumerous roboter films I would say) computers and specially roboters are treated as if they were independent beings with an own conciousness and an own will power. This exalting of computers and roboters (which in itself is a cultural factor) reminds me of the story of Frankenstein, which is the result of the 19 C fear of creating uncontrolable monsters in laboratory. From there to now what one notices is that the human monsters are conceived in the usual way.
I don´t think it totally impossible to think of an self concious and self suficient machine that gets out of the control of its creators. But I think it very very difficult to happen at the present moment.

Well, are you talking about a computer just randomly selecting words until he finds an order that we can understand? In this case, the person responsable for the creation of such computer/program is concious and just created an technique/toll for writting, which i suspect is too little effective.

Let's just remember, language itself was born from us giving meaning to things are unconcious - nature occurences, for example. Language is not exactly logical (how it is born and developed).

We don't need a meaning to agree and perhaps we do not need a correct meaning. Think how many cultural creations are born from our "Mistakes". The entire, magical scene of Moses parting the red sea is a mistake, for example. For years, people understood Moby Dick just as a sea adventure novel. it was wrong. Proust used to say the writer is born from the moment the reader dies, because he starts trying to tell the story or give a meaning that is his own. This flexibitily is the root of all art. Think about: We have no idea about the smile of Monalisa, yet, it gave us a lot to think about. To create about.

Obviously, when we are strictly talking about a literary study, we will do a selection. We have our bias. But I suggest to avoid "you cannot do it" to "it is good what you did?".

I guess what I am trying to do by removing meaning from the text or sound waves is to place it in some sort of consciousness "field" that we use when we communicate. The existence of this field or whatever would ground any psi ability we had as well as allow us to communicate with each other through language.

The robot would not have access to this field because the robot is not conscious, but only has access to texts or sound waves. These texts and sound waves are traces left by this field, but they are not the field itself. Those texts and sound waves would be the data needed to fit a model that the robot uses to interpret our communication and attempt to join in our conversation. The strong AI proponent would say that that is all we are doing as well, but is it?

One could modify Proust's comment by saying that the act of reading rewrites the story unless one is a robot. If one is a robot the act of reading optimizes a response to the stimulus given by the text or sound wave.

I find these data part a bit difficult to grasp. If communication is reduced to "scripts ", algorytms and sound waves I fear that all cultural elements that are not strictly technological are eliminated.

We are a little far from the topic of why does free verse count as verse.

Lol! I should say so!
I guess it all started with the reflection of a text having one or several meanings or no meaning at all.

I didn't realize I had a position on something like that until I wrote it down.

And I never thought about a computer being eventually able to produce literature.

My computer produces literature everyday ;)

The computer manipulates texts and metaphorically "reads" them, but only a human can give the text meaning since texts don't intrinsically have any meaning. I think that's my position. Which means there must be some level of consciousness above us that allows us to participate in meaningfulness. The position is holistic rather than mechanistic.

I was thinking today about what the OP was really saying about free verse when asking if it counted as verse. When I read what he/she wrote I think it might have something to do with verbal abuse that I mentioned in an earlier post to this thread. I would rethink the question like this: Is free verse verbal abuse?

Now, I like some free verse, so I would answer: Sometimes it doesn't work for me, that is, when looking through my consciousness to find some link to meaning I don't find any. When it doesn't work I ask myself "Is it me or the author?" Practically speaking, it is always me since I can't do anything about the author except whine about it and not read the text.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JCamilo

My computer produces literature everyday ;)

---

Come on, JC, you know what I mean!;)
Your computer doesn´t produce anything on its own accord.
You (or whoever uses your PC for that purpose) produces literature on your computer as you would do it on an typewriter or paper in other times.
Else we would be at the starting point of this argument again.

"I was thinking today about what the OP was really saying about free verse when asking if it counted as verse. When I read what he/she wrote I think it might have something to do with verbal abuse that I mentioned in an earlier post to this thread. I would rethink the question like this: Is free verse verbal abuse?"
I don´t think so, Yes/No. I reread the post, it seems to be about of the form of the verse.
https://literarydevices.net/free-verse/
Well, unless everybody is joking today.

On the "literal" level, the OP is asking a question about form as you say. Here's the OP:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leopard

I'm rather ignorant when it comes to poetry so this is likely a stupid question, but why is free verse considered verse? Isn't verse distinguished from prose by its adherence to a meter and/or rhyme scheme? It seems to me like you can just take any random bit of prose, arrange it into lines, and call it free verse.

---

Note the qualifications "I'm rather ignorant" and "this is likely a stupid question". I read that as irony. Then note "you can just take any random bit of prose". The irony is turning into sarcasm with the "any random" part, but not on the surface, not literally. I agree that Leopard probably doesn't see free verse as "verbal abuse", but he probably hasn't thought of it as such.

Regardless, here is a good example of two people reading the same text and creating different meanings in the process. And if Leopard joined the discussion he might recreate a third meaning to what he wrote. Even my assumption that Leopard is a "he" is assigning meaning to some text that is not there. I can see why early 20th century mathematicians did not want human involvement in mathematics.

You may be right, Yes/No. In fact I don´t know the OP, so I can´t say if there is any irony.
When I am not sure of the writers intention I always make a point of taking the text literally.
The most that can happen is that the writer will take me for ingenuous or stupid, and I think I can survive that coming from an avatar. On the other hand, if I atribute an irony that is not there I may create an unnecessary misunderstanding.
As an internet aquaintance of mine says, written irony is so much more difficult to detect than the verbal.

I agree that written irony is difficult to detect. With the verbal you can see the person. I suspect facial expression adds a lot to the communication.

It sure does. Well, maybe the OP will state his intention - or not.

You may be confusing pentameter with verse. Poetry is sometimes written inside a regimented structure, example: Shakespeare wrote predominantly I Iambic Pentameter. Each line has 5 feet/10syllables however you prefer to count it. There's also terza-rima, quatrain, sestina, etc Each has specific rules that govern the structure. Verse poetry is poetry that has both a consistent meter and a rhyme scheme. Blank verse is poetry based on unrhymed lines and a definite meter, usually of iambic pentameter. Both blank verse and free verse are free from rhyme scheme. Hope that helps.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by siobankelley

You may be confusing pentameter with verse. Poetry is sometimes written inside a regimented structure, example: Shakespeare wrote predominantly I Iambic Pentameter. Each line has 5 feet/10syllables however you prefer to count it. There's also terza-rima, quatrain, sestina, etc Each has specific rules that govern the structure. Verse poetry is poetry that has both a consistent meter and a rhyme scheme. Blank verse is poetry based on unrhymed lines and a definite meter, usually of iambic pentameter. Both blank verse and free verse are free from rhyme scheme. Hope that helps.

---

This was an interesting complication, which shows how difficult the whole issue is (except for experts). Thank you siobankelley!