In poetry, enjambment ( or ; from the French ''enjamber'') is incomplete

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituency) ...

at the end of a

line Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...

; the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation. Lines without enjambment are end-stopped. The origin of the word is credited to the French word ''enjamber'', which means 'to straddle or encroach'. In reading, the delay of meaning creates a tension that is released when the word or phrase that completes the syntax is encountered (called the rejet); the tension arises from the "mixed message" produced both by the pause of the line-end, and the suggestion to continue provided by the incomplete meaning.Preminger 359 In spite of the apparent contradiction between rhyme, which heightens closure, and enjambment, which delays it, the technique is compatible with rhymed verse. Even in

couplet A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the ...

s, the closed or heroic couplet was a late development; older is the open couplet, where rhyme and enjambed lines co-exist. Enjambment has a long history in poetry. Homer used the technique, and it is the norm for alliterative verse where rhyme is unknown. In the 32nd Psalm of the Hebrew Bible enjambment is unusually conspicuous.William R. Taylor, The Book of Psalms, The Interpreters' Bible, volume VI, 1955, Abingdon Press, Nashville, p. 169 It was used extensively in England by Elizabethan poets for dramatic and narrative verses, before giving way to closed couplets. The example of

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet and intellectual. His 1667 epic poem '' Paradise Lost'', written in blank verse and including over ten chapters, was written in a time of immense religious flux and political ...

in ''

Paradise Lost ''Paradise Lost'' is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608–1674). The first version, published in 1667, consists of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse (poetry), verse. A second edition fo ...

'' laid the foundation for its subsequent use by the English Romantic poets; in its preface he identified it as one of the chief features of his verse: "sense variously drawn out from one verse into another".

Examples

The start of '' The Waste Land'' by

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biogr ...

, with only lines 4 and 7 end-stopped: These lines from Shakespeare's '' The Winter's Tale'' (''c.'' 1611) are heavily enjambed: 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" with a sensation of urgency or disorder. In contrast, the following lines from ''

Romeo and Juliet ''Romeo and Juliet'' is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about the romance between two Italian youths from feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetim ...

'' (''c.'' 1595) are completely end-stopped: 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. ''

Endymion Endymion primarily refers to: * Endymion (mythology), an Ancient Greek shepherd * ''Endymion'' (poem), by John Keats Endymion may also refer to: Fictional characters * Prince Endymion, a character in the ''Sailor Moon'' anime franchise * Raul ...

'' by

John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculo ...

, lines 2–4: The song "One Night In Bangkok", from the musical '' Chess'', written by

Tim Rice Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English lyricist and author. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote, among other shows, ''Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat'', ' ...

and Björn Ulvaeus, includes examples such as : Closely related to enjambment is the technique of "

broken rhyme Broken rhyme, also called split rhyme, is a form of rhyme. It is produced by dividing a word at the line break of a poem to make a rhyme with the end word of another line. Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem ''The Windhover'', for example, divides the ...

" or "split rhyme" which involves the splitting of an individual word, typically to allow a rhyme with one or more syllables of the split word. In English verse, broken rhyme is used almost exclusively in

light verse Light poetry or light verse is poetry that attempts to be humorous. Light poems are usually brief, can be on a frivolous or serious subject, and often feature word play including puns, adventurous rhyme, and heavy alliteration. Typically, light ...

, such as to form a word that rhymes with "orange", as in this example by

Willard Espy Willard Richardson Espy (December 11, 1910February 20, 1999) was an American editor, philologist, writer, poet, and local historian. Raised in the seaside village of Oysterville, Washington, Espy later studied at the University of Redlands in Ca ...

, in his poem "The Unrhymable Word: Orange": The

clapping game A clapping game (or hand game) is a type of usually cooperative (i.e., non-competitive) game which is generally played by two players and involves clapping as a rhythmic accompaniment to a singing game or reciting of a rhyme, often nursery rh ...

Miss Susie "Miss Susie had a steamboat", also known as "Hello Operator",Mayfield, Josh. at ''Inky's Linkies''. 3 Apr 2004. Accessed 13 Jan 2014. "Miss Suzy", "Miss Lucy", and many other names, is the name of an American schoolyar ...

" uses the break "... Hell / -o operator" to allude to the taboo word "

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

", then replaces it with the innocuous " Hello".

Examples

See also

Notes

References

Further reading