Poetry versus Prose in Shakespeare's HamletIn any discussion between poetry and prose worth its stanzas, questions about tools such as meter, rhyme, and format must come into play. game. These are, after all, the most obvious distinguishing features of poetry, and they must certainly be essential in determining the definition, and indeed the nature, of poetry. Yet a term as broad as "poetry" is not so easily quantified as to assign physical characteristics to it and let all writing fall into or out of that category. Poetry is determined by the effect it has on the reader. It is an individual opinion, and therefore defined by the (individual) reactions collected. daisies and long violets which liberal shepherds give a cruder name, but our cold maids of reform call them dead men's fingers. in the crying stream. Her clothes spread wide, and like a mermaid for a time they carried her, and she sang snatches of old lauds, like one incapable of her own distress, or like a creature native and innate to this element. But this could not last long until her clothes, heavy with their drink, dragged the poor wretch from her melodious rest to a muddy death. - Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV Scene VII Take, for example, the above text from Hamlet. One of the most moving monologues in the play, it describes Ophelia's death in specific and touching terms. Think about the public middle of paper......stop. We can only hope it's better than "You know, to muddy death." Poetry is the feeling that arises when a person sees something that strikes a chord in their chest and reverberates in the rhythm struck. How many times have you heard something other than poetry online passionately described as “poetic”? It's a common word because it describes the wonder we feel when we read really good verse. It is a common word because after experiencing it once (in this poetry), we experience it again in other forms. Not all of these forms rhyme. Poetry isn't the placement of lines, it's what the placement of lines helps express. It's simply a more efficient (and more technically difficult) thing to accomplish when placed in meter. Poetry is that song which finds its way from within when we see it in some form before us, regardless of line or verse..