INTRODUCTION TO PROSE - clampschool

Definition of Prose

Prose is the written equivalent of the spoken language.  It is written in words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and chapters.  It utilizes punctuation, grammar and vocabulary to develop its message. 

According miriam webster

1.      The ordinary language people use in speaking or writing b : a literary medium distinguished from poetry especially by its greater irregularity and variety of rhythm and its closer correspondence to the patterns of everyday speech

2.      A dull or ordinary style, quality, or condition

Prose is a kind of writing distinguished from poetry because of variations in rhythm (rhythm), which has larger and more appropriate language with lexical meaning.

Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure (as in traditional poetry). The English word "prose" is derived from the Latin prōsa, which literally translates as "straight-forward." While there are critical debates on the construction of prose, its simplicity and loosely defined structure has led to its adoption for the majority of spoken dialogue, factual discourse as well as topical and fictional writing. It is commonly used, for example, in literature, newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias, broadcasting, film, history, philosophy, law and many other forms of communication. Prose First Known Use: 14th century

History of english prose

Old english prose begin with alfred who was seeking to re-establish learning in england after the vikings.

·         The anglo saxon period 5^th-11^th

The amount of surviving Old English prose is much greater than the amount of poetry. Of the surviving prose, sermons and Latin translations of religious works are the majority.  Old English prose first appears in the 9th century, and continues to be recorded through the 12th century as the last generation of scribes, trained as boys in the standardised West Saxon before the Conquest, died as old men.

·         Prose in medieval England 11^th -16^th

In the Medieval period can be thought of as a "transitional" period between the Anglo-Saxon and the Renaissance Period. Sometimes called the Middle Ages, the term is used to indicate its position between the classical and modern world. Unlike the previous period of the Anglo-Saxons, the Medieval period, however is completely different. They differ in their languages, cultures, attitudes, and more. Through the study of Medieval society and culture, one can understand the literature written during this prosperous and interesting period in English history.

·         The renaissance period early 16th –to late 17^th

Prose was easily the principal medium in the Elizabethan period, and, despite the mid-century uncertainties over the language's weaknesses and strengths—whether coined and imported words should be admitted; whether the structural modeling of English prose on Latin writing was beneficial or, as Bacon would complain, a pursuit of “choiceness of phrase” at the expense of “soundness of argument”—the general attainment of prose writing was uniformly high, as is often manifested in contexts not conventionally imaginative or “literary,” such as tracts, pamphlets, and treatises. The obvious instance of such casual success is Richard Hakluyt's Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589; expanded 1598–1600), a massive collection of travelers' tales, of which some are highly accomplished narratives.

·         Romantic period early 19^th

The French Revolution prompted a fierce debate about social and political principles, a debate conducted in impassioned and often eloquent polemical prose. Richard Price's Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789) was answered by Edmund Burke's conservative Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

·         Victorian era 19^th

Carlyle may be said to have initiated Victorian literature with Sartor Resartus. He continued thereafter to have a powerful effect on its development. The French Revolution (1837), the book that made him famous, spoke very directly to this consciously postrevolutionary age. On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841) combined the Romantic idea of the genius with a further statement of German transcendentalist philosophy, which Carlyle opposed to the influential doctrines of empiricism and utilitarianism. Carlyle's political writing, in Chartism (1839; dated 1840), Past and Present (1843), and the splenetic Latter-Day Pamphlets (1850), inspired other writers to similar “prophetic” denunciations of laissez-faire economics and utilitarian ethics. The first importance of John Ruskin is as an art critic who, in Modern Painters (5 vol., 1843–60), brought Romantic theory to the study of painting and forged an appropriate prose for its expression. But in The Stones of Venice (3 vol., 1851–53), Ruskin took the political medievalism of Carlyle's Past and Present and gave it a poetic fullness and force.

Differences between old and modern prose

Old Prose longer have the forms as follows:

1) Tale, the old literary form that contains the life stories of the gods, fairies, prince or princess of the kingdom, and kings who have a life of extraordinary and magical.

2) History or tiambo, one long prose form that the contents of the story is taken from an historical event that never happened.

3) Tales. old literary form that tells of something extraordinary events and full khavalan, about the gods, fairies, beautiful daughters, and so forth. Functions must be fairy tales as an entertainer. Therefore, the fairy tale story also called solace.

Modern prose

Prose is just the glow of the new society. The works of prose produced by the new Indonesian society began to be flexible and universal, written and illustrated by lively and can be enjoyed by the wider public sphere. modern prose forms, including the following:

1) Roman contains the story of human life described as specific or detail. Based on its contents, romance novels can be divided into historical, social romance, romance the soul, romance tendencies.
2) Short Story, is a short essay in the form of narrative. Short piece tells the full human life dispute, touching or exciting, and contain an impression that is not easily forgotten.
3) The novel, which tells the imaginative essay on the intact side probematika human life or a few figures.
4) Autobiography, contains the story of the author's personal stories about himself, about his life experiences from childhood until her adulthood.
5) Biography, contains a story or a story about a person's life experiences from childhood to adulthood, or even to death, written by someone else.
6) Essay, essay in the form of criticism about a work of literature, art, or field

KIND OF PROSE

FICTION AND NON-FICTION

FICTION

1.      A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century.

The present English (and Spanish) word derives from the Italian novella for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the Latin novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new". Most European languages have preserved the term "romance" (as in French and German "Roman", and in Portuguese "Romance") for extended narratives.The English and Spanish decisions came with the 17th-century fashion of shorter exemplary histories.

a.       Mystery

Mystery fiction is a loosely-defined term that is often used as a synonym for detective fiction or crime fiction— in other words a Italic text novel or short story in which a detective (either professional or amateur) investigates and solves a crime. Sometimes mystery books are nonfiction. The term "mystery fiction" may sometimes be limited to the subset of detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle element and its logical solution (cf. whodunit), as a contrast to hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism. However, in more general usage "mystery" may be used to describe any form of crime scene fiction, even if there is no mystery to be solved. For example : Harry Potter by J.K Rowling

a.       Romance

The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late 20th and early 21st centuries, these novels are commercially in two main varieties: category romances, which are shorter books with a one-month shelf-life, and single-title romances, which are generally longer with a longer shelf-life. For example: Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare.

b.      Detective

The detective story is a genre of fiction in which a detective, either an amateur or a professional, solves a crime or a series of crimes. Because detective stories rely on logic, supernatural elements rarely come into play. The detective may be a private investigator, a policeman, an elderly widow, or a young girl, but he or she generally has nothing material to gain from solving the crime. Subgenres include the cozy and the hard-boiled detective story. For example: Sherlock Holmes

2.      Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional. Writers of stories in this genre, while penning fiction, attempt to capture the manners and social conditions of the persons or time(s) presented in the story, with due attention paid to period detail and fidelity. Historical fiction is found in books, magazines, art, television, film, theater, and other media.

Historical fiction presents readers with a story that takes place during a notable period in history, and usually during a significant event in that period. Historical fiction often presents actual events from the point of view of fictional people living in that time period.

In some historical fiction, famous events appear from points of view not recorded in history, with fictional characters either observing or actively participating in these actual events. Historical figures are also often shown dealing with these events while depicting them in a way that has not been previously recorded. Other times, a historical event is used to complement a story's narrative, occurring in the background while characters deal with situations (personal or otherwise) wholly unrelated to that historical event. Sometimes, the names of people and places have been in some way altered. For examples: Magic Tree House series, The King of Mazy May.

3.      A fable is a very short story which promises to illustrate or teach us a lesson which is also called a moral. Usually if not always, fables are stories having animal characters that talk like humans. Many common sayings come from Aesops Fables like "Honesty is the best policy," and "Look before you leap" are familiar examples of fables. Aesop is believed to have been a Greek slave who made up these stories. Nobody is really sure if Aesop made up these fables. What is certain, however, is that the Aesop's Fables are timeless. They are so wonderful that they have been told over and over again for several thousand years. Here are some of the most popular fables of all times I hope you like them.

A fable is a short allegorical tale emphasizing on a moral or any principle of behavior. The characters of fables are usually animals that portray like human beings, though they keep their animal traits intact. The moral of these fables is highlighted towards the end of the story in the form of a proverb and is generally enacted. The oldest fables describe stories of why crows are black, or why different animals display different characteristics, such as a sly fox, a dignified lion, and so on. The earliest fables came from Greece and India, while the oldest Western fables were those of Aesop.

4.      A fairy tale is a story intended for children, often involving some fanciful creature or extraordinary adventure. Contemporary fairy tales often have a moral or ethical undercurrent to the story, a "lesson" to be learned. A technical definition of fairy tales from yourDictionary.com says that they are a "fanciful tale of legendary deeds and creatures, usually intended for children.

Stories of kings, princesses, poor farmers, and queens are not new to any one of us. They are generally guided by supernatural or magical events that fascinate us to get engrossed in them. These short stories are nothing but fairy tales. They are distinguished by generalized characters without being individualized or localized; thus, the names ‘a king’, ‘a queen’, ‘a poor farmer’, and ‘a princess’. Fairy tales begin with misfortunes graduating towards undergoing adventures and solving mysteries, and ending in a happily-ever-after mode, thereby rewarding the virtue. These stories often revolve around charms, magic, disguise, and spells. Hans Christian Andersen (Danish), Basile (Italian), the Grimm Brothers (German), Perrault (French), and Keightley and Croker (English) are known to create some of the most famous collections of fairy tales.

5.      A short story is fictional work of prose that is shorter in length than a novel

Because of the shorter length, a short story usually focuses on one plot, one main character (with a few additional minor characters), and one central theme, whereas a novel can tackle multiple plots and themes, with a variety of prominent characters.

What are some of the elements that make up a good story?

a) A short story is a piece of prose fiction which can be read at a single sitting.

b) It ought to combine matter-of-fact description with poetic atmosphere.

c) It ought to present a unified impression of temper, tone, colour, and effect.

d) It mostly shows a decisive moment of life (which can entail a fatal blow).

e) There is often little action, hardly any character development, but we get a snapshot of life.

f) Its plot is not very complex (in contrast to the novel), but it creates a unified impression and leaves us with a vivid sensation rather than a number of remembered facts.

g) There is a close connection between the short story and the poem as there is both a unique union of idea and structure.

The short story is a piece of art that tries to give us a specified impression of the world we live in. It aims to produce a single narrative effect with the greatest economy of means and utmost emphasis.

NON-FICTION

1.       An essay is a short piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal point of view. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism, political manifestos, learned arguments, observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article and a short story. Almost all modern essays are written in prose, but works in verse have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope's An Essay on Criticism and An Essay on Man). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population provide counterexamples.

In some countries (e.g., in the United States), essays have become a major part of formal education. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and admission essays are often used by universities in selecting applicants and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams. The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other mediums beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary film making styles and which focuses more on the evolution of a theme or an idea. A photographic essay is an attempt to cover a topic with a linked series of photographs; it may or may not have an accompanying text or captions.

2.       In a sense, autobiography (from the Greek eauton = self, bios = life and graphein = write) is a form of biography, the writing of a life story. The difference, of course, is point of view: an autobiography is from the viewpoint of its subject. Biographers generally rely on a wide variety of documents and viewpoints; an autobiography may be based entirely on the writer's memory. A name for such a work in Antiquity was an apologia, essentially more self-justification than introspection. John Henry Newman's autobiography is his Apologia pro vita sua. Augustine applied the title Confessions to his autobiographical work (and Jean-Jacques Rousseau took up the same title). The pagan rhetor Libanius framed his life memoir as one of his orations, not the public kind, but the literary kind that would be read aloud in the privacy of one's study.

A memoir is slightly different from an autobiography. Where an autobiography focuses on the "life and times" of the character, a memoir has a narrower, more intimate focus on his or her own memories, feelings and emotions.

For example, the autobiography of an American Civil War general might include sections on the nature of slavery, the origins of the Civil War, and the political career of Abraham Lincoln. But the memoir of a Civil War general would focus on his personal reasons for joining the battle, the effect of the war on his mind and soul, and the joy and fear he felt on the battlefield.

3.       Journals

A journal is a continued series of writings made by a person in response to their life experiences and events. Diaries contain a description of daily events. A journal may include those descriptions, but it also contains reflections on what took place and expresses emotions and understandings about them. It doesn't matter what you call your writing, either a diary or journal, as long as you see the distinction between these two ways of writing.

4.       Articles

Article must be fresh and written on subject or product which we wish to describe. Article writing service must be done by good writer who have strong knowledge in subject or products it describes.

Example: Computers and Education in America-In the last decade, computers have invaded every aspect of education, from kindergarten through college. The figures show that schools have spent over two billion dollars installing two million new computers. Recently, with the explosive increase of sites on the Internet, computers have taken another dramatic rise. In just five years, the number of Internet hosts has skyrocketed from 2 million to nearly 20 million.

ELEMENT OF PROSE

1.      Theme: The overall idea of what is the story all about.

Ideas, or thoughts that underlie a major literary work is called a theme. The theme is something that became the basis of the story, something that permeates the story, or something that the subject matter in the story.

The theme is the soul of all parts of the story. Therefore, the theme became the basis for developing the whole story. Theme in many ways is "binding" the presence or absence of events, conflicts and situations, including also various other intrinsic elements.
The theme is stated explicitly that (mentioned) and some are declared implicitly (without mention but understood).

In determining the theme, the author is influenced by several factors, among others: personal interests, tastes of readers, and wishes the publisher or ruler.
In a literary work, besides there is a central theme, often there is also the theme side. The central theme is a theme that became the center of a whole series of events in the story. The theme is a byproduct of other themes that accompany the central theme.

2.      Setting: Refers to the place and time.

Setting is all the information, instructions, reference in respect of time, space, atmosphere, and the situation of the events in the story. Setting can be divided into three main elements:

a. Setting places, referring to the location of the events recounted in a work of fiction.
b. Setting of time, dealing with the problem of 'when' the occurrence of the events recounted in a work of fiction.

c. Social setting, refer to matters relating to social behavior in a place that is told in a work of fiction. Social background could include living habits, customs, traditions, beliefs, outlook on life, ways of thinking and being, and social status.

3.      Plot: Plot is a sequence or series of incidents in the story. Plot can be constructed based on three things:

a.         Based on the order time (chronology). plot is so-called linear plot.

b.      Based on the causal relationship (causal). Plot is so-called causal flow.

c.       Based on the theme of the story. The flow is so-called thematic groove. In the grooved thematic story, every event as if it stood alone. If one episode removed the story can still be understood.

d.      The plot structure is as follows:

1. The initial part consists of: 1) exposition, 2) stimulation , and 3) rising action.
2. The middle part, consisting of: 4) conflict, 5) complication, and 6) climax.
3. The final section, consisting of: 7) falling action, and 8 counclusion.

In building a plot, there are some important factors to consider for a dynamic flow. Important factors are:

1. Probability factor. That is, the events of the story should not always be realistic but it makes sense.

2. Surprise factor. That is, the events should not be directly predictable / recognized by the reader.

3. Coincidence factor. Namely unexpected events occur, by chance happen.
The combination or variation of the three factors that cause flow tersebutlah become dynamic.
The thing that should be avoided in the groove is aberration (digresi). Aberration is the events or episodes that are not associated with the core story or deviate from the subject matter at hand in the story.
Arrangement of events in the story. Under plot , it have:
            A. Introduction
            b. Conflict
            c. Climax
            d. Falling action
            e. Resolution
TYPES OF PLOT:
A. Circular: Flashback
b. Linear: Foreshadowing
c. In medias res: In the middle of the things

4. Characters, under characters it have:
    A. Protagonist: Actor/ bida
    b. Antagonist: Enemy/ contrabida

5. Conflict
  a. Man vs. Man
  b. Man vs. Nature
  c. Man vs. Society
  d. Man vs. Himself

6. Point of view
    a. First person
    b. Third person Anonymous