There has always been controversy over the nature of poetic language. To some, poetic language should be special, removed from the language of everyday (thus, the dictum, "The language of the age is never the language of poetry"). To others, it should be closely in touch with everyday language, or, perhaps, be "current language heightened." To Ralph Waldo Emerson, the whole language is in any case 'fossil poetry.' Statements of this kind to some extent miss the point, which is to stress the enormous range of linguistic expression that is found under the heading poetry. At one extreme, there are poems that are as far removed from everyday speech as it is possible to imagine; at the other, there are poems that, if it were not for the division into lines, would closely resemble prose.