Re: Crowd Source Request: Examples of pre in pages you use.

Hi Patrick,

I'm not a Poly Lit Major, but I believe the formatting of both of those
examples is in fact important; certainly the Haiku, which is specifically
defined as 3 lines with the 5,7,5 syllable construct. Wrapping (for
example) the middle line would certainly break that construct, and it would
no longer be a Haiku...

I also quoted the specific pattern of the Robert Service poem, where the
4-line pattern is also an important literary construct; I can't comment on
*how* important, but I do know there is some importance attached. Any
academics out there who could weigh in?

JF

(Sent from my mobile, apologies for any spelling mistakes)

On Wed, Jan 30, 2019, 6:07 PM Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk
wrote:

> On 30/01/2019 23:42, John Foliot wrote:
> > Two examples when formatted text is important (if not critical):
> >
> > Haiku: (a traditional form of Japanese poetry. Haiku poems consist of 3
> > lines. The first and last lines of a Haiku have 5 syllables and the
> > middle line has 7 syllables. The lines rarely rhyme.)
> >
> >     The summer river:
> >     although there is a bridge, my horse
> >     goes through the water.
> >
> > Example of a Robert Service
> > <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Service> poem
> > <https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-26688>: (This poem follows
> a
> > regular pattern of four-line stanzas composed of two rhyming couplets.)
> >
> >     On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
> >     Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven
> >     nail.
> >     If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we
> >     couldn't see;
> >     It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.
> >
> >
> > In these examples, the formatting of the text also conveys the
> > Pentameter <https://literarydevices.net/pentameter/>of the
> rhymes/poems.
> > Conveying this literary device is wholly dependent on the formatting of
> > the text:
>
> Is it the formatting here, or is it just the line breaks that are
> important? And is a haiku not semantically better marked up not with a
> <pre> element, but rather with something like a humble <p> with
> appropriate (and meaningful) <br> line breaks?
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
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>
>