Prose is a genre of literature, in the voice of commonplace or ordinary speech.

Prose may be artful, and employ metaphor, meter, or rhyme by the cartful. However, if it is ified or has a strict structure of meter or rhyme, or if it is read in a stylized fashion, this is a genre of poetry in the voice of ordinary speech, called Prose poetry. Prose is the genre usually adopted for the description of facts, or the discussion of ideas. It is the genre of the newspaper, encyclopedia, fiction and fact, of screen-plays, of philosophy, letters to Dad and appeals to the bank examiner.

---

See also:

• Literature basic topics