Enjambment is the breaking of a syntactic unit (a
phraseIn grammar, a phrase is a group of words functioning as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence.For example, the house at the end of the street is a phrase. It acts like a noun. It can further be broken down into two shorter phrases functioning as adjectives: at the end and of the street, a...
,
clauseIn grammar, a clause is a pair or group of words that consist of a subject and a predicate, although in some languages and some types of clauses, the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase. It may instead be marked on the verb...
, or
sentenceIn linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language—a grammatical and lexical unit consisting of one or more words, representing distinct and differentiated concepts, and combined to form a meaningful statement, question, request and command....
) by the end of a line or between two
versesA verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
. It is to be contrasted with
end-stoppingEnd-stopping is a feature in poetry in which the syntactic unit corresponds in length to the line. Its opposite is enjambment, where the sense runs on into the next line. According to A. C...
, where each
linguisticA language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using...
unit corresponds with a single line, and
caesurathumb|100px|An example of a caesura in modern western music notation.In meter, caesura is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc...
, in which the linguistic unit ends mid-line. The term is directly borrowed from the
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
enjambement, meaning "straddling" or "bestriding".
The following lines from
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's
The Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, first published in the First Folio in 1623. Although it was listed as a comedy when it first appeared, some modern editors have relabeled the play a romance. Some critics, among them W. W...
(
c. 1611) are heavily enjambed:
- I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
- Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
- Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
- That honourable grief lodged here which burns
- Worse than tears drown.
Meaning flows as the lines progress, and the reader’s eye is forced to go on to the next sentence.
Enjambment is the breaking of a syntactic unit (a
phraseIn grammar, a phrase is a group of words functioning as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence.For example, the house at the end of the street is a phrase. It acts like a noun. It can further be broken down into two shorter phrases functioning as adjectives: at the end and of the street, a...
,
clauseIn grammar, a clause is a pair or group of words that consist of a subject and a predicate, although in some languages and some types of clauses, the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase. It may instead be marked on the verb...
, or
sentenceIn linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language—a grammatical and lexical unit consisting of one or more words, representing distinct and differentiated concepts, and combined to form a meaningful statement, question, request and command....
) by the end of a line or between two
versesA verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
. It is to be contrasted with
end-stoppingEnd-stopping is a feature in poetry in which the syntactic unit corresponds in length to the line. Its opposite is enjambment, where the sense runs on into the next line. According to A. C...
, where each
linguisticA language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using...
unit corresponds with a single line, and
caesurathumb|100px|An example of a caesura in modern western music notation.In meter, caesura is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc...
, in which the linguistic unit ends mid-line. The term is directly borrowed from the
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
enjambement, meaning "straddling" or "bestriding".
The following lines from
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's
The Winter's TaleThe Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, first published in the First Folio in 1623. Although it was listed as a comedy when it first appeared, some modern editors have relabeled the play a romance. Some critics, among them W. W...
(
c. 1611) are heavily enjambed:
- I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
- Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
- Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
- That honourable grief lodged here which burns
- Worse than tears drown.
Meaning flows as the lines progress, and the reader’s eye is forced to go on to the next sentence. It can also make the reader feel uncomfortable or the poem feel like
“flow-of-thought”The train of thought, stream of thought, or chain of thought refers to the interconnection in the sequence of ideas expressed during a connected discourse or thought, as well as to the sequence itself, especially in discussion how this sequence leads from one idea to another.When a reader or...
with a sensation of urgency or disorder.
In contrast, the following lines from
Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet and Macbeth, is...
(
c. 1595) are completely end-stopped:
- A glooming peace this morning with it brings.
- The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
- Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things.
- Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished.
Each line is formally correspondent with a unit of thought — in this case, a clause of a sentence. End-stopping is more frequent in early Shakespeare: as his style developed, the proportion of enjambment in his plays increased. Scholars such as Goswin König and A. C. Bradley have estimated approximate dates of undated works of Shakespeare by studying the frequency of enjambment.
Enjambment may also be used to delay the intention of the line until the following line and thus play on the expectation of the reader and surprise them.
Alexander PopeAlexander Pope is a famous eighteenth century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet.-...
uses this technique for humorous effect in the following lines from
The Rape of the LockThe Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos , but then revised, expanded and reissued under Pope's name on March 2 1714, in a much-expanded 5-canto version .-The Poem:The poem satirises...
:
- On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore
- Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore.
The second line should confuse the reader, raising the question "Why would a
JewThe Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
or
infidelInfidel is an English word meaning "a person who does not believe in religion or who adheres to a religion other than one's own"...
adore a
crossThe Christian cross is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity. It is a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It is related to the crucifix and to the more general family of cross symbols...
?" On second reading, the reader should realize that "breast" does not carry the general androgynous connotation of "chest" but instead the specific idea of a woman's breasts, which are so attractive that a man of any
religionA religion is a system of human thought which usually includes a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, deity or deities, or ultimate truth...
would kiss the
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
cross to be near.
A master of enjambment,
E. E. CummingsEdward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e. e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
combined it with the use of
punctuationPunctuation is everything in written language other than the actual letters or numbers, white space, and indentation.Punctuation marks are symbols that correspond to neither phonemes of a language nor to lexemes , but which serve to indicate the structure and organization of writing, as well as...
as an art form:
- i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
- my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
- i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
- by only me is your doing,my darling)
- ——————————————————— i fear
- no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
- no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
- and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
- and whatever a sun will always sing is you
- here is the deepest secret nobody knows
- (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
- and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
- higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
- and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
- i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
For another example of enjambment in
poetryPoetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, look at the opening lines of Catullus XIII,
ad Fabullum:
- Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me
- paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus,
- si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam
- cenam, non sine candida puella
- et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.
Here is an English translation, roughly preserving word order:
- You will dine well, my Fabullus, at my house
- in a few, if the gods favor you, days,
- and if you bring with you a good and great
- dinner, not without a white girl
- and wine and wit and laughs for all.
The phrase
si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam / cenam (“if you bring with you a good and great / dinner”) is sharply enjambed between the third and fourth lines.
Enjambment is sometimes referred to as a "run-on line".
Further reading
John Hollander,
Vision and Resonance, Oxford U. Press, 1975 (especially chapter 5).
The Literary Encyclopedia
See also
- Blank verse
Blank verse is a type of poetry, distinguished by having a regular meter, but no rhyme. In English, the meter most commonly used with blank verse has been iambic pentameter ....
- Caesura
thumb|100px|An example of a caesura in modern western music notation.In meter, caesura is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc...
- Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry, pattern poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
- End-stopping
End-stopping is a feature in poetry in which the syntactic unit corresponds in length to the line. Its opposite is enjambment, where the sense runs on into the next line. According to A. C...
- Free verse
Free verse - also known as vers libre - is a term describing various styles of poetry that are written without using a strict rhyme scheme, but still recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers will perceive to be part of a coherent whole.-Types:Philip...
- Line break
A line break in poetry is when a line within a poem ceases to extend, and a new line starts; within the standard conventions of Western literature, this is usually but not always at the left margin...
- Meter (poetry)
In poetry, the meter is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse meter, or a certain set of meters alternating in a particular order. Prosody is a more general linguistic term, that includes poetical meter but also the rhythmic aspects of...
- Poetic form
- Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
- Visual poetry
Visual poetry is poetry or art in which the visual arrangement of text, images and symbols is important in conveying the intended effect of the work. It is sometimes referred to as concrete poetry, a term that predates visual poetry, and at one time was synonymous with it.Visual poetry was heavily...