Enjabment

Enjambment
Definition of Enjambment
Enjambment, derived from the French word, means to step over, or put legs across. In poetry it means moving over from one line to another without a terminating punctuation mark. It can be defined as a thought or sense,phrase or clause , in a line of poetry that does not come to an end at the line break , but moves over to the next line. In simple words, it is the running on of a sense from one couplet or line to the next without a major pause or syntactical break.

Short Examples of Enjambment
1. I think I had never seen
A verse as beautiful as a flower.
2. Autumn showing off colors slowly
Letting the splendid colors
Flow softly to earth below.
3. The poet labors all his days
To build the beauty in his rhyme .
4. When rain drops are
Exposed to sunlight, even
Colorless become vibrant.
5. Longer days have come,
Cuckoos are here with joyous
Shades of dark green arise!
6. Amongst the bushes and thorns
Beautiful red rose blooms.
7. Breezy blue sky so clear,
So bright and relaxing
That escapes daily toil.
8. The sunlight brightens the horizon
Like the sky lightens a small island.
9. Cold morning time
Ice crystals reflect the rays
Of blazing sunrise.
10. Before the sunrise
A chain of red clouds
And all else is in the darkness.

Examples of Enjambment from Literature

            Example #1: It is a Beauteous Evening (By William Wordsworth)
“It is a beauteous Evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquility;
The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea;
Listen! The mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder―everlastingly. …
“Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;
And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.”
This poem is a perfect example of enjambment. In this poem, every line is running over to the next, while the sense is not finished at the end of lines, without pause or break. None of the lines make sense – or stand on their own – without the next line.

             Example #2: Endymion (By John Keats)
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and asleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”
Endymion is a famous example of enjambment. The first and last lines in the given poem have end marks, while the middle lines are enjambed. There is a flow of thought from one line to the next.

            Example #3: The Winter’s Tale (By William Shakespeare)
“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 honorable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown …”
Shakespeare frequently used enjambment in his plays. This extract is filled with the heavy use of enjambment. In each line, the linguistic unit finishes mid-line with a caesura . The meaning flows from one line to next, and readers are forced to read the subsequent lines.

Functions of Enjambment
Enjambment can be used to surprise readers by delaying the meaning of a line until the following line is read. Some writers use this technique to bring humorous effects to their work. It is good to use in verse in order to create a sense of natural motion.
In poetry, the role of enjambment is normally to let an idea carry on beyond the restrictions of a single line. Another purpose of enjambment is to continue a rhythm that is stronger than a permanent end-stop, wherein complicated ideas are expressed in multiple lines.

Source:
https://literarydevices.net/enjambment/