Majusculation: The act of beginning a line of text with a capital letter when it is not the beginning of a sentence. (1) (2) (3)
…must remember that "majusculation" is an imaginary word and stop using it as an actual literary term robinschaer
Professionalism
The greatest problem with calling a method of writing, especially poetry with all of its artistic freedoms, "unprofessional," is that the art itself is unprofessional. Poetry is not about looking professional; poetry is about bringing to life emotions and points of view that may not have a perceived beginning, ending, or definite form. Poetry is certainly not about being professional, and if that's the sort of thing you're looking for, you're working the wrong medium. divBy0
Rationalism
Traditionally, the first letter of each line of a poem is capitalized, even if it isn’t the beginning of a sentence. However, poets enjoy trashing (sorry, I meant reinterpreting) rules. In poetry, anything goes, including capitalization rules. English Grammar For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Verse Style
For this style of poem, there will be 4 lines per verse (you may think of a verse as a ‘poem paragraph'), and every second line will rhyme. You also need to note that every line of a rhyming poem is capitalized. How To Do Things
Essay
Capitalizing the first letter of each beginning word in a line of poetry is traditional, if not contemporary and common. Historically, this is how poetry has been distinguished from other art forms when rendered on the page, and writing it this way is still often taught in elementary and secondary schools. In scholarship, of course, it is de rigueur that one be careful to note this capitalization, and to reproduce it faithfully when quoting.
In professional contemporary letters, however, the waters have been muddied. As a reaction to tradition, with plenty of examples even within the tradition, American poets often stopped capitalizing their lines beginning loosely with the second half of the 20th Century, a period generally associated with free verse. The abandonment of this particular custom has become the ready practice, so much so that contemporary readers now encountering capitalized first words in lines may find them startling.
Why poets even did this has essentially been lost to us, beyond the historicity of being able to say that poets just always did this. The original truth of its why may be as simple as housekeeping--poetry like this, prose like that. Or it may reside in some nobler ambition, such as attempting to reflect a studied anticipation at the great orator's next line. If the line was delivered in appropriately dramatic fashion, the capital letter in this circumstance became a cue to the reader that a deep breath was taken at this place.
The idea of a breath being taken, or a dramatic point being made, may also be a useful consideration in trying to understand line breaks. It is reasonable to thing that the two worked in concert: The line break was made clear and certain for the reader by the capitalizing of the first word of the next line, this visual cue serving as assurance to the careful reader that, indeed, a line break was intended even if there was no other punctuation at the end of the line to so indicate.
The convention of capitalizing, however, was likely such a pro forma convention that it was never deemed necessary to write its usage into the rules of formal verse writing. The sonnet may have 14 lines and a variety of other defining aspects, but nowhere do the rules say that the first word of each line in a sonnet particularly must be capitalized. This is probably not because it was unimportant to the form, but rather that it was so strong an unspoken convention in poetry generally that nobody thought to include mention of this practice in any specific rules. And since it was not written into the rules, the contemporary writer has taken this to mean that capitalizing of this sort is not, therefore, one of the rules. Alberto Rios
Style Guide
Capitalize the first word of the following:
a sentence, e.g. I am confused.
a complete sentence after a colon, e.g. The crowd all realized the same fact: The band was not sober.
a quotation, if it is a complete sentence, e.g. The teacher said, "Today we will review Chapter 11."
an independent question within a sentence, e.g. The question is, Am I doing the right thing?
each line of a poem, e.g. Walking the shore that day, each reaches down
the salutation/greeting of a letter, e.g. Dear Barbara
the complimentary close of a letter, e.g. Yours truly
each item in an outline or list, e.g. Buy groceries, Go to the post office, Pick up dry cleaning
Dictionary.com
Classical Editing
A typical manuscript for a poem might include several undated versions, with varying capitalization throughout, sometimes a "C" or an "S" that seems to be somewhere between lowercase and capital, and no degree of logic in the capitalization. While important subject words and the symbols that correspond to them are often capitalized, often (but not always) a metrically stressed word will be capitalized as well, even if it has little or no relevance in comparison to the rest of the words in the poem. Early editors removed all capitals but the first of the line, or tried to apply editorial logic to their usage. For example, poem 632 is now commonly punctuated as follows:
The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside –
The above capitalizations, which include such seemingly unimportant words as "Blue," "Sponges," and "Buckets," capitalizing "Sky" but not "sea," were regularized into the following traditional capitalization and punctuation by early editors:
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
Poets.Org: Emily Dickinson
Limericks
Rules should be followed in the case of limericks, except when speech is meant to be substandard due to the character of the speaker. All punctuation should be correct in the use of periods, commas, and semi-colons. Each new line of the poem, however, should be capitalized, even if it is not the beginning of a sentence. The language should appear natural other than, as above, when the character of the speaker is meant to be of a particular nature, manner, or ancestry. onlineschools.com
…must remember that "majusculation" is an imaginary word and stop using it as an actual literary term robinschaer
Professionalism
The greatest problem with calling a method of writing, especially poetry with all of its artistic freedoms, "unprofessional," is that the art itself is unprofessional. Poetry is not about looking professional; poetry is about bringing to life emotions and points of view that may not have a perceived beginning, ending, or definite form. Poetry is certainly not about being professional, and if that's the sort of thing you're looking for, you're working the wrong medium. divBy0
Rationalism
Traditionally, the first letter of each line of a poem is capitalized, even if it isn’t the beginning of a sentence. However, poets enjoy trashing (sorry, I meant reinterpreting) rules. In poetry, anything goes, including capitalization rules. English Grammar For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Verse Style
For this style of poem, there will be 4 lines per verse (you may think of a verse as a ‘poem paragraph'), and every second line will rhyme. You also need to note that every line of a rhyming poem is capitalized. How To Do Things
Essay
Capitalizing the first letter of each beginning word in a line of poetry is traditional, if not contemporary and common. Historically, this is how poetry has been distinguished from other art forms when rendered on the page, and writing it this way is still often taught in elementary and secondary schools. In scholarship, of course, it is de rigueur that one be careful to note this capitalization, and to reproduce it faithfully when quoting.
In professional contemporary letters, however, the waters have been muddied. As a reaction to tradition, with plenty of examples even within the tradition, American poets often stopped capitalizing their lines beginning loosely with the second half of the 20th Century, a period generally associated with free verse. The abandonment of this particular custom has become the ready practice, so much so that contemporary readers now encountering capitalized first words in lines may find them startling.
Why poets even did this has essentially been lost to us, beyond the historicity of being able to say that poets just always did this. The original truth of its why may be as simple as housekeeping--poetry like this, prose like that. Or it may reside in some nobler ambition, such as attempting to reflect a studied anticipation at the great orator's next line. If the line was delivered in appropriately dramatic fashion, the capital letter in this circumstance became a cue to the reader that a deep breath was taken at this place.
The idea of a breath being taken, or a dramatic point being made, may also be a useful consideration in trying to understand line breaks. It is reasonable to thing that the two worked in concert: The line break was made clear and certain for the reader by the capitalizing of the first word of the next line, this visual cue serving as assurance to the careful reader that, indeed, a line break was intended even if there was no other punctuation at the end of the line to so indicate.
The convention of capitalizing, however, was likely such a pro forma convention that it was never deemed necessary to write its usage into the rules of formal verse writing. The sonnet may have 14 lines and a variety of other defining aspects, but nowhere do the rules say that the first word of each line in a sonnet particularly must be capitalized. This is probably not because it was unimportant to the form, but rather that it was so strong an unspoken convention in poetry generally that nobody thought to include mention of this practice in any specific rules. And since it was not written into the rules, the contemporary writer has taken this to mean that capitalizing of this sort is not, therefore, one of the rules. Alberto Rios
Style Guide
Capitalize the first word of the following:
a sentence, e.g. I am confused.
a complete sentence after a colon, e.g. The crowd all realized the same fact: The band was not sober.
a quotation, if it is a complete sentence, e.g. The teacher said, "Today we will review Chapter 11."
an independent question within a sentence, e.g. The question is, Am I doing the right thing?
each line of a poem, e.g. Walking the shore that day, each reaches down
the salutation/greeting of a letter, e.g. Dear Barbara
the complimentary close of a letter, e.g. Yours truly
each item in an outline or list, e.g. Buy groceries, Go to the post office, Pick up dry cleaning
Dictionary.com
Classical Editing
A typical manuscript for a poem might include several undated versions, with varying capitalization throughout, sometimes a "C" or an "S" that seems to be somewhere between lowercase and capital, and no degree of logic in the capitalization. While important subject words and the symbols that correspond to them are often capitalized, often (but not always) a metrically stressed word will be capitalized as well, even if it has little or no relevance in comparison to the rest of the words in the poem. Early editors removed all capitals but the first of the line, or tried to apply editorial logic to their usage. For example, poem 632 is now commonly punctuated as follows:
The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
For – put them side by side –
The one the other will contain
With ease – and You – beside –
The above capitalizations, which include such seemingly unimportant words as "Blue," "Sponges," and "Buckets," capitalizing "Sky" but not "sea," were regularized into the following traditional capitalization and punctuation by early editors:
The brain is wider than the sky,
For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
Poets.Org: Emily Dickinson
Limericks
Rules should be followed in the case of limericks, except when speech is meant to be substandard due to the character of the speaker. All punctuation should be correct in the use of periods, commas, and semi-colons. Each new line of the poem, however, should be capitalized, even if it is not the beginning of a sentence. The language should appear natural other than, as above, when the character of the speaker is meant to be of a particular nature, manner, or ancestry. onlineschools.com
