Enjambment

From Wikinfo

Enjambment

The flowing of a line of poetry, or verse, into the next. This poetical form was quite popular before the early eighteenth century. It later fell out of favour, but was revived in the Romantic era, by poets such as Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth.

E.g:

'His role was that of master of those means Assuming certain skill in what so seems Sufficient to the cause of wishful dreams.'

Enjambment is when a linguistic unit (phrase or sentence) in poetry runs over the line break. Enjambment is the opposite of end stopping, where each linguistic unit corresponds with the line length.

For example these lines from T.S. Eliot's poem "Gerontion" are heavily enjambed:

"After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions"

Meaning flows from line to line, and the reader's eye is pulled forward. Enjambment moves the poem forward, it accelerates. Compare the enjambed Eliot with these lines, from Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism," which are completely end stopped:

"Nature to all things fix'd the Limits fit,
And wisely curb'd proud Man's pretending Wit:"

Each line is formally correspondent with a unit of thought - in this case, a clause of a sentence.

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Enjambment" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enjambment