Cento¶

cento · procedural · catalogued

A poem assembled entirely from lines taken from other poets, with nothing of the compiler's own wording.

Provenance¶

Source: Traditional; Ausonius, Cento Nuptialis, 4th century
Attribution: traditional — classical or folk; no single origin to name
Checkability: none — no computable acceptance criterion exists
Attested: codified — formulated as a rule by a tradition rather than declared by an author

Details¶

Kind: constructive
Languages: en
Requires: tokens
Deterministic: no
Also known as: patchwork poem
In other languages: Cento (de), Centon (fr)

Prompt hint¶

Build the poem entirely from lines borrowed from other poets.

Why this has no checker¶

This procedure has no computable acceptance criterion, so it will never be implemented. It is catalogued because the form belongs in an honest survey of the field, and denckring status counts it separately rather than reporting a gap that cannot close.