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What is Prose?

Prose is one of the foundational subjects in English studies, encompassing the full range of written language that does not follow a formal metrical structure. Students encounter it across courses in literary analysis, composition theory, grammar, and cultural history, where it serves as both an object of study and a medium of expression. Its academic interest lies in the vast territory it covers — fiction, nonfiction, personal narrative, and formal exposition — and in the way writers manipulate prose style to shape a reader's sense of meaning, voice, and reality. Works such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's fiction, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, William Byrd's History of the Dividing Line, Wole Soyinka's The Lion and the Jewel, and the experimental writing of Djuna Barnes all appear as touchstones for understanding how prose operates across different traditions and periods.

Student essays on this topic take several distinct approaches. Some pursue close reading and formal analysis, examining how a specific author's writing style generates particular effects on the reader. Others adopt comparative or hybrid angles, exploring the confluence of prose and poetry, or the boundary between fiction and nonfiction in contexts like nineteenth-century England and the grotesque. Historical and cultural approaches examine how prose reflects the lives and nature of the societies that produce it, while grammar-focused essays address the structural mechanics underlying effective writing.

A strong essay on prose begins with a clearly scoped thesis that identifies a specific stylistic, formal, or thematic argument rather than simply describing a work's content. Evidence drawn from close attention to language — sentence rhythm, diction, tone, and structure — carries the most weight. Writers should resist treating prose as a neutral container for ideas; the way something is written is inseparable from what it means, and overlooking that connection is the most common weakness in essays on this subject.

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Research Paper Doctorate

Imagery in Jean Toomer's "Reapers": Monotony and Death

Jean Toomer's poem, "Reapers" (1923) contains many darkly powerful images, physically and metaphorically, based largely (although not entirely) on the poem's repeated use of the word "black," in reference to both men…

Research Paper Doctorate

Postmodern Elements in Rushdie's Midnight's Children

Salman Rushdie is one of the most famous authors of the modern era. In the tradition of Gabriel Marquez, Rushdie sweeps the reader up in his novel, Midnights Children, like the book by Marquez that obviously had a great…

Research Paper Doctorate

Monster Motivations and Heroism in Beowulf Explained

¶ … Old English poem Beowulf offers a number of contrasts in telling the story of the hero Beowulf and his fight to save a community not his own first from the monster Grendel and then from Grendel's mother.

Paper Doctorate

Emerson and Thoreau: Transcendentalism and Individualism

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was an American lecturer and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century and was a proponent of individualism and critic of societal pressures. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was also an American poet, but also an abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, historian and part of the Transcendentalist movement. To understand both of these men and their ideas, it is first necessary to place them in context with the historical and cultural aspects of America from 1820 on.

Research Paper Doctorate

Prometheus in Romantic Literature: Byron, Shelley, and the Myth

Promethean myth holds a very strong hold upon the literature of the romantic era, a collected era of the rekindling of the ideas and ideals of classical antiquity. Though within each evolving age there is the…

Research Paper Doctorate

Thomas Cranmer: Archbishop, Reformer, and Anglican Founder

As the Archbishop of Canterbury during the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer was in an extraordinary position to effect changes in England's political and religious direction.

Paper High School

Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour": A Rhetorical Analysis

Kate Chopin's 1894 short story "The Story of An Hour" depicts a major event in a minimalist fashion -- most of the action of the tale takes place in the mind of the protagonist, Louise Mallard.

Sherman Alexie's Imagery and Storytelling in Lone Ranger

This paper discusses three stories from Sherman Alexie's book, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven: "Every Little Hurricane," "What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona," and "The Trial of Thomas Builds-the-Fire." The focus is on the writing style of these stories, specifically, on the rhetorical use of repetition. Through use of repetition, Alexie manages to create a hypnotic story-telling mode that draws readers into the world of the Spokane Indian Reservation in which the stories are set. The repetition occurs with the words themselves, as well as through the use of the stories that are told – or at times not told – but that retain their power in the lives of the characters.

Essay Undergraduate

Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic Style in The Fall of the House of Usher

Of all the authors to employ use of the Gothic style in their poetry or prose, none mastered the craft more than Edgar Allen Poe. The classic American fiction writer specialized in fostering a unique sense of dread and…

Essay Undergraduate

Second Grade Weather Thematic Unit: Science and Literacy

The proposed thematic unit is designed for a general education classroom at the second grade level. The suggested time frame is three weeks, but the unit could be either shortened slightly or extended by adjusting the number of activities. Reading activities include shared reading and self-selected reading from a variety of books provided by the teacher. The book selection should include multiple genres and multiple reading levels. A suggested list is included. Writing activities engage students in the five stages of the writing process. Students will create a weather journal that includes their writing and a reading log. Students may also include notes about weather observations.

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