Your point seems like a fine one. Do you care to elaborate?
Are you simply saying it’s one thing to say something of wisdom, another to embody it and live one’s life according to it, or are you saying something a bit more nuanced?
Because you mentioned sagely wisdom having to be embodied. I thought I would just see if you considered it embodied in the examples provided. We’re on the same page.
These vignettes are in many ways inspired by Confucius and the Platonic dialogues. As well as Chinese Classical Painting. I see them as fusions of both Eastern and Western classical traditions.
Hi John. You're technically right. I know that it's technically not correct, but I did consult with other editors in the past, and they did also point out that there are aesthetic considerations. Given these are a series of couplets, you're right that the technical rule is what you describe, but as a poem, I've also been given various alternative approaches.
Personally, I find the lines seem a bit empty or awkward if there's quotations on one side, nothing on the other, then they start again on one side, the other side empty, which is the technically correct way for prose. It seems to make more sense aesthetically to contain each spoken passage as a clear spoken passage. But yeah, I don't disagree with you. It just seems like one of those things where depending on who you ask, they'll have their own take on what's technically better or aesthetically more appropriate, given the form and structure of the lines.
If I remember correctly I tend to put inverted commas at the beginning and end of a speech and ignore the verse breaks completely. I think aesthetic considerations can be dangerous and can tend to make one's work too pretty-pretty. It is finding the correct balance that is difficult. Here one is completely on one's own. Yeats, I'm pretty sure, used to deliberately roughen up his work once he had finished polishing it. This is what gives it that rugged stone-like quality for which he was rightly famous.
Seems most of the young people today that the old folks have nothing worthwhile to offer them, except maybe their absence. Robert Funderburk
This makes me weep with that « knowing without knowing. »
Sage wisdom imparted here.
Your point seems like a fine one. Do you care to elaborate?
Are you simply saying it’s one thing to say something of wisdom, another to embody it and live one’s life according to it, or are you saying something a bit more nuanced?
Could you give me an example of a someone you consider a sagely figure. Confucius, Rumi, Plato, for example. How are those?
Because you mentioned sagely wisdom having to be embodied. I thought I would just see if you considered it embodied in the examples provided. We’re on the same page.
These vignettes are in many ways inspired by Confucius and the Platonic dialogues. As well as Chinese Classical Painting. I see them as fusions of both Eastern and Western classical traditions.
Bravo; well done.
The inverted commas at the end of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth stanzas are incorrect, and should be removed.
The rule is
"- - - -
" - - - -
" - - - -
" - - - - "
You can even place invented commas at the beginning of each line rather than each stanza. Otherwise you merely destroy the continuity of the speech.
Hi John. You're technically right. I know that it's technically not correct, but I did consult with other editors in the past, and they did also point out that there are aesthetic considerations. Given these are a series of couplets, you're right that the technical rule is what you describe, but as a poem, I've also been given various alternative approaches.
Personally, I find the lines seem a bit empty or awkward if there's quotations on one side, nothing on the other, then they start again on one side, the other side empty, which is the technically correct way for prose. It seems to make more sense aesthetically to contain each spoken passage as a clear spoken passage. But yeah, I don't disagree with you. It just seems like one of those things where depending on who you ask, they'll have their own take on what's technically better or aesthetically more appropriate, given the form and structure of the lines.
If I remember correctly I tend to put inverted commas at the beginning and end of a speech and ignore the verse breaks completely. I think aesthetic considerations can be dangerous and can tend to make one's work too pretty-pretty. It is finding the correct balance that is difficult. Here one is completely on one's own. Yeats, I'm pretty sure, used to deliberately roughen up his work once he had finished polishing it. This is what gives it that rugged stone-like quality for which he was rightly famous.