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

While I am not an expert on this either – I believe for a 3 line Haiku it is the line breaks that matter and thus br would be sufficient.  However, there clearly are other poems such as Buffalo Bill’s by E E Cummings where the spacing matter to the artistic prose.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47244/buffalo-bill-s


I was hoping that we might be able to gain some insight from the BANA braille rules but they aren’t as useful as I’d hope.
http://www.brailleauthority.org/formats/2016manual-web/section13.html#_Toc462495173

http://www.brailleauthority.org/formats/2016manual-web/section13.html#_Sample_4:_Poem


There are also single line and single word Haikus….

Jonathan

From: John Foliot <john.foliot@deque.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 7:55 PM
To: Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk>
Cc: WCAG <w3c-wai-gl@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Crowd Source Request: Examples of pre in pages you use.

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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<mailto: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

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