You know how in Disney movies they shift smoothly from talking to singing? It’s just like that, only instead of the bass beat to the character’s song starting to play, her ‘prose’ (think ‘non-poetry words’, aka what most people consider books to be full of) shifts smoothly into Shakespeare-like syllable emphasis patterns. Listen for the percussion notes starting about ten seconds into https://youtu.be/79DijItQXMM and imagine that instead of him bursting into musical song, he burst into chanting a limerick:

There once was a demi-god, Maui / Amazing and awesome: I’m Maui // Who stole you your fire / and made your days lighter // Yes, thank you, you’re welcome! Love: Maui

It’s a bit odd of an analogy, but limericks and “Iambic pentameter” are specific instances of an underlying language architectural thing, so it should be just enough to convey the basics of that “prose to Iambic” sentence. And: if you’ve ever watched “Much Ado About Nothing” from the mid-90s, that’s 100% Iambic.

(If you’re an English major, yes, I know, this is all wrong; it’s just a one-off popsicle-sticks context-unique mindset-conveyance analogy-bridge, not step-by-step directions to lit/ling coordinates in your field.)

Two broad categories, verse and prose.

Prose is mostly focused on describing meaning using any words that serve to do so.

Verse is more concerned with structural factors like rhythm, tonality, and structure within syllables, or within types of sound, or parts of speech. Other linguistic devices which look at details beyond the strict meaning of the words, like rhyme or many other factors (you could even use visual spacing for example) can be considered in verse.

Within verse there's the concept of iambs. I think of it as a tuple of two syllables which are said, weak-strong. Pentameter means ten syllables, and iambic means in groups of weak and strong. Most of Shakespeare is written like this. Also English naturally sounds iambic a lot of the time.

Iambic pentameter sounds like this:

  I watched a bird attempt its beak upon
  The end of fake too-moist baguette in vain
  For it was sick of stale McDicks tossed on
  It endlessly maintained its rationed pain

  While others in its bobbing flock for scraps
  Of birds fought for the thrill squawked on and on
  Till cannibals among their kind rejoiced
  To find cousins in mayonnaise so long

Or like a particular Shakespearean sonnet [0]. Or like any of them, [1]

[0] https://shakespeare.mit.edu/Poetry/sonnet.I.html

[1] https://shakespeare.mit.edu/Poetry/sonnets.html

[2] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/shakespe...

Not with that attitude you won’t! But dip your toe in, _Pride and prejudice_ is pretty light and breezy while having some depth to it.

It’s like incel mentality except applied to literacy

She is although simply a joy to read. Witty remarks and well written.

"Elinor agreed with it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition". - from S&S

Who wasn't in a situtation where they felt arguing would do nothing? John Green asked: "Who doesn't want a friend as witty as Jane Austin to comment on life?

Of course! This is my favourite example, from Sense and Sensibility, because it announces itself with "burst", and that's the novel where she deploys it most:

"Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease."

She 'tends towards Iambic' in literary criticism terminology. So it's not a strict Iambic, more like a 'soft Iambic' which is a term I can't remember if it's actually used in lit crit, or if I made it up.

You need to drop the "at" syllable, in that example (which you would do in vocal rhythms of English, then and now), for it to be a true Iambic.

There's lots of good writing on the King James Bible "tending towards" Iambic, which should be more Google-able, and her father was a preacher, so that's a likely influence there, I would speculate.

Some others I like that I remember:

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope." - Persuasion (I think?).

"Till this moment I never knew myself." - Sense and Sensibility again? I can't remember off the dome. That's a gorgeous strict Iambic.

There are much longer examples - whole paragraphs that close chapters of Sense and Sensibility specifically. I'll try and find the version I have notations on when I'm next around my books. She regularly slips into it to close moments of emotional crescendo - "Cursus" being the Latin term for an analogous technique, when it was more frequently used in a more stylised manner.

That sounds like a line Raymond Chandler would have used. His turn of phrase is also delightful.