Metritocracy

I find that I am filled with fascination at the prospect of a world where daily speech was always rhymed and metered, so that each new thought came out like poetry. A nation capable of thinking in these ways might well evolve a culture more creative, with everyone an artist.

If each native always had a lovely turn of phrase, would their population even know it? Would people feel like artists all the time? Just because your words come out in rhyme doesn’t mean you think you are a poet. And not to put too fine a point upon it, what if speech all came out as a sonnet?

One thought on “Metritocracy”

  1. I was in college when I first read Ariosto’s 38,000 line epic poem, Orlando Furioso, which is written entirely in ottava rima (8 lines of an ABABABCC rhyme scheme). By the time I was a third of the way through, I found I could hold spontaneous conversations in the meter of the poem. It was pretty wild, and the ability faded soon after I finished the book (much to the relief of my roommates!)

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