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Enjambment
(redirected from enjambments)

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Enjambment 

in prosody, placement of the syntactic pause or stop at a position other than the rhythmic pause at the end of a line, hemistich, or stanza.

In classical verse there are three kinds of enjambment: rejet is the placement of the end of a clause or sentence at the beginning of the following line, contre-rejet the placement of the beginning of a sentence at the end of the preceding line, and double-rejet the placement of the beginning of a sentence at the end of one line and its conclusion at the start of the following line.

When enjambments are used sparingly, they give a strong intonational emphasis to the parts of the sentence severed by the line’s division. If they are numerous, they produce an intonation so close to that of prose that it almost obscures the verse rhythm; this is particularly true in dramatic verse. Classicism avoided enjambment; romanticism and some poetic schools of the 20th century cultivated it. An example of enjambment from modern poetry can be seen in the following lines of M. Tsvetaeva:

It matters not to me among which
People—I shall be bristling like a captive
Lion, or from what circle of people
I shall be excluded—inevitably …

REFERENCE

Shengeli, G. Tekhnika stikha. Moscow, 1960.

M. L. GASPAROV



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Witty rhymes, as in a meditation on, of all topics, Venus's magnetic field: "Stern Mars is cold, Uranus gassy, / And Saturn hopelessly declasse"; equally amusing enjambments across lines of otherwise strict meter: "Just turned nineteen, a nicely molded lad, / I said goodbye to Sis and Mother; Dad / Drove me to Wisconsin .
Much of the style of the book is evident in these opening lines: the movement from short fragments to long (often very long) breathless sentences; the dissection of sensation ("Which part of the body"); the stuttering interjections ("can / feel it, yes"); the already fragmented syntax broken further by radical enjambments ("un- / natural"); the quick snatches of ravishing lyricism ("iron-gloom of low light"), appearing suddenly and often immediately withdrawn.
We must wade here through logical and quotational meanderings, complicated further by convoluted sentences with their meaning diluted in infinite enjambments, as in the opening lines of the poem: "This institution, / perhaps one should say enterprise / out of respect for which / one says one need not change one's mind / about a thin one has believed in, / requiring public promises / of one's intention / to fulfill a private obligation" (M: 62).
 
 
 
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