Guide to Literary Terms Prose

Prose simply refers to language written in sentences and paragraphs rather than verse (i.e. language other than poetry). It applies to all language without a regular rhythmic pattern or metrical structure.

Correct example:

• “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”
• The first sentence of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is an excellent example of prose.

Incorrect example:

• “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun / Coral is far more red than her lips’ red: / If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; / If hairs be wire, black wires grow on her head” (lines 1-4).
• These lines from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 are an example of verse.

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