Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor514ce
I'll take a look, thanks. Yes, you're perfectly correct to remove breaks that you are certain are merely artifacts of the print margins.
Someone else asked about what formatting a poem might need. In addition to "lines", poems have larger structures: stanzas, strophes, and verse paragraphs. Perhaps this example will illustrate (from Robert Frost's "Home Burial"):
Code:
1. "Amy! Don't go to someone else this time.
2. Listen to me. I won't come down the stairs."
3. He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.
4. "There's something I should like to ask you, dear."
5.
6. "You don't know how to ask it."
7. "Help me, then."
8.
9. Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.
10.
11. "My words are nearly always an offense."
Note that "lines" are a metrical unit, in this poem. Each line is composed of so many "feet", a unit of patterned stresses. So lines 6 & 7 are in fact a single "line" of poetry.
My numbered lines are there to help explain. Lines 1-4 are a "verse paragraph", a unit of the poem where the husband speaks and the poem describes his action and speech.
The break to line 6 is there to indicate the wife speaks. The husband replies on the same "line", thus the break and indentation on 6/7.
Another blank line, because we shift from the husband's "Help me, then", to the wife's action. So line 9 is both a line and a verse paragraph. Another blank, because line 11 is where the husband begins to speak again (a long speech, so quite a long verse paragraph in the full poem).
To properly format a poem, you need more than simply a static left margin and static indent! |
who said anything about a static indent. A CSS isn't static. the names of each paragraph type needs to be defined and then you just assign a name to a paragraph structure. The first four lines which are each separate paragraphs) are type1 which is defined to be a paragraph with outdent on the line and an left margin that is considerably inside just in case it is used on a device that isn't wide enough.
Line 6 and 7 are tricky since you want to pretend that 7 is connected to the end of 6. This can be done as a special case since it probably won't happen too often in a poem but it is possible to build a CSS for this too.
line 4, 9 and perhaps 11 are the same as type1 but they have defined height between the lines. Alternately you can just insert a blank line if you wish but having a new type is a bit more elegant.
I never said poems were just as easy as prose but they can be formatted on eBooks.
Dale