Understanding enjambment.

March 15, 2023

Emily wrote beautifully about hope:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Enjambment, incomplete syntax at the end of a line, is used by Emily in the first ten lines of the poem. Its opposite is end-stopping seen in the last two lines. The following lines from The Winter's Tale are also heavily-enjambed:

Hermione.There's some ill Planet raignes:
I must be patient, till the Heauens looke
With an aspect more fauorable. Good my Lords,
I am not prone to weeping (as our Sex
Commonly are) the want of which vaine dew
Perchance shall dry your pitties: but I haue
That honorable Griefe lodg'd here, which burnes
Worse then Teares drowne: 'beseech you all (my Lords)
With thoughts so qualified, as your Charities
Shall best instruct you, measure me; and so
The Kings will be perform'd.

Here in Hermione's speech the lines 1 and 3 are end-stopped whereas enjambment is seen in the lines 4-8. In contrast, the following lines from Romeo and Juliet are completely end-stopped:

Prince Escalus.A glooming peace this morning with it brings,
The Sunne for sorrow will not shew his head;
Go hence, to haue more talke of these sad things,
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished.
For neuer was a Storie of more Wo,
Then this of Iuliet, and her Romeo.

Each line is formally correspondent with a unit of thought—a clause of a sentence.

Why is enjambment used?

The use of enjambment creates tension in the reader; 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. Enjambment can also create a sensation of urgency or disorder in the reader.