Testing for mathematical lineation in Jim Crace’s Quarantine and T.S. Eliot’s Four
Quartets
By employing a mathematical characterisation of the distinction between prose and verse, namely the randomword length features
of English prose and the non-random features of verse, it is possible to detect mathematical lineation in writings that are
not typographically lineated. For example, such lineation can be shown to be present in T. S. Eliot's poem Burnt
Norton (1941), and Jim Crace's prose ction Quarantine (1997). In the rst of these cases we show
that the verse is lineated in units of four syllables, while the other sections of The Four Quartets are not
lineated. In the second we show that Crace's text is lineated in syllabic groups of two, four, six, eight, ten, and subsequent
multiples of two. Quarantine, we demonstrate, is non-randomly segmented, and while it does not employ a core
isometric line length, and its lines do not follow on one from another, it is still, and in a novel and important sense,
lineated. In this paper we offer further comments on appropriate statistical methods for such work, and
also on the nature of formal innovation in these two texts. Additional remarks are made on the roots of lineation as a
metrical form, and on the prose-verse continuum.
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Aoyama, Hideaki
2014.
A Discussion on Econophysics. In
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New Economic Windows, ],
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Tew, Philip
2010.
C
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J
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The Encyclopedia of Twentieth‐Century Fiction,
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
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