Study of First Octet in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's "A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument'

Written in prose, the first octet of Rossetti's "A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument" read something like the following:

A sonnet is the documentation of a moment of inspiration and insight. It is a representation of the soul of the poet who created it. While the moment of its creation is very fleeting and temporary, it is also kept alive through the sonnet. Whether the sonnet is written for the reconciliation of its authors sins or for the foretelling of something serious and/or ominous to come, or whether it is written in ink, ebony, or ivory, it will stand the test of time. Whether or not it recognizes its significance and brilliance at the hard-working hands of the author, it will live on through day and night.

First of all, it is obvious that the poem, when turned into prose, loses much of its brevity. The idea of a sonnet making an inevitably fleeting moment eternal can be expressed much more quickly through poetry than through the science of prose. Poetry can abruptly state an abstract idea, as it is acceptable in poetry if the wording is left open to interpretation. In the above prose, it was ideal to be much more concrete. Another notable difference between the poetry and the prose is that the paradox "To one dead deathless hour." ("A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument," Line 2) is lost. When one tries to describe the moment of genius a poet experiences when he/she writes a sonnet as both temporary and eternal, a simple paradox created by the combination of two opposite adjectives is satisfactory in a poem. In prose, however, one must explain that a moment by nature is temporary, and a sonnet cannot literally keep the moment alive, but a sonnet can keep alive the feeling of brilliance of the moment. When explained scientifically like this, the concept loses its paradoxical nature, as a paradox is by nature not scientifically possible. Other literary elements that the poem uses that its prose form would not include alliteration "Moment's Monument" ("A Sonnet is a Moment's Monument," Line 1), a rough Petrarchan rhyme scheme, and sense-related imagery that is too vague to use in prose.