In the West, prose poetry originated in early-19th-century France and Germany as a reaction against the traditional verse line. The German Romantics Jean Paul, Novalis, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Heinrich Heine may be seen as precursors of the prose poem. Earlier, 18th-century European forerunners of prose poetry had included James Macpherson's "translation" of Ossian and Évariste de Parny's "Chansons madécasses". At the time of the prose poem's establishment as a form, French poetry was dominated by the alexandrine, a strict and demanding form that poets starting with Maurice de Guérin (whose "Le Centaure" and "La Bacchante" remain arguably the most powerful prose poems ever written ) and Aloysius Bertrand (in Gaspard de la nuit) chose, in almost complete isolation, to cease using. Later Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé followed their example in works like Paris Spleen and Illuminations.Stuart Friebert and David Young (eds.) Models of the Universe: An Anthology of the Prose Poem. (1995)Gedichte in Prosa. Von der Romantik bis zur Moderne. Vorwort und Auswahl, Alexander Stillmark, Frankfurt a. Main (2013) The prose poem continued to be written in France into the 20th century by such writers as Max Jacob, Henri Michaux, Gertrude Stein, and Francis Ponge.
In the West, prose poetry originated in early-19th-century Fran,ce and Germany as a reaction against the traditional verse line. The German Romantics Jean Paul, Novalis, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Heinrich Heine may be seen as precursors of the prose poem. Earlier, 18th-century European forerunners of prose poetry had included James Macpherson's "translation" of Ossian and Évariste de Parny's "Chansons madécasses". At the time of the prose poem's establishment as a form, French poetry was dominated by the alexandrine, a strict and demanding form that poets starting with Maurice de Guérin (whose "Le Centaure" and "La Bacchante" remain arguably the most po,werful prose poems ever written ) and Aloysius Bertrand (in Gaspard de la nuit) chose in almost complete isolation, to cease using. Later Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé followed their example in works like Paris Spleen and Illuminations.Stuart Friebert and David Young (eds.) Models of the Universe: An Anthology of the Prose Poem. (1995)Gedichte in Prosa. Von der Romantik bis zur Moderne. Vorwort und Auswahl, Alexander Stillmark, Frankfurt a. Main (2013) The prose poem continued to be written in France into the 20th century by such writers as Max Jacob, Henri Michaux Gertrude Stein, and Francis Ponge.