XPost: comp.os.linux.misc, alt.folklore.computers   
   From: commodorejohn@gmail.com   
      
   On Sun, 28 Dec 2025 21:06:09 -0500   
   c186282  wrote:   
      
   > I do note that 'artful prose' largely ceased to exist once pen on   
   > paper was abandoned. Larger cultural shift maybe, or maybe it was the   
   > preferred writing method, one that took some of the 'art' out of   
   > writing ?   
      
   While I do think there's something (not sure how much, but something) to   
   the idea that the author's relationship to their medium affects their   
   state of mind and the resulting work (I find that I connect much more   
   to drawing in traditional media than doing digital art with a tablet,   
   even though the latter makes many things much easier,) writing styles   
   have been shifting continuously for about as long as we've had writing;   
   long before printing, let alone typewriters/word processors.   
      
   The tendency toward elaborate, artful constructions and language play   
   has been vying with the desire to prune unnecessary material and shoot   
   for minimalist "elegance" (as Saint-Exupéry defined it) for millennia.   
   The Mannerist period was probably the most pronounced example of the   
   former, but you see it in other places and times as well - the strange   
   and sometimes almost riddle-like "kennings" in Norse and Old English   
   poetry, f'rexample, but even back in the first century A.D. Longinus of   
   "On the Sublime" discusses these tendencies and weighs their merits.   
      
   And closer to our day, writers of the 19th century had a much heavier   
   bent towards the fancy stuff than we do; elaborate language in prose is   
   more disdained than not, these days. I have mixed feelings on that -   
   better examples of the old style (Poe, for instance, Lovecraft in his   
   better moments) can really absorb you in their dense, weird language.   
   On the other hand, it can easily go awry and turn into a sesquipedalian   
   slog (Lovecraft in his worse moments, a host of lesser authors whose   
   names we've long since forgotten.) It's a tricky business; a minimalist   
   style is harder to go wrong with, but it forgoes a lot of opporunities   
   for beauty, and mere minimalism doesn't necessarily equal elegance.   
      
   (Cross-posting to alt.unix.geeks as it's been suggested that this is a   
   better venue for these kinds of OT discussions than c.o.l.m.)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)