Talk:Enjambment

message: The definition's insistence on terminal punctuation is both old-fashioned (ironically) and wrong. Poets can do away with punctuation the same as they may with capitalization but a poem written in lines without any punctuation may still be enjambed or end-stopped. It's about the syntax. Does the clause *straddle" the line break? If the line break interrupts a unit of syntax, the line is enjambed, punctuation be damned. And if the line ends where the syntax-unit also ends, the line is end-stopped. This is true even if the poem was never written down--even ancient works recited from memory will exhibit end-stopping and enjambment. These terms are not about periods or semicolons, they're about rhythm and the way that sentence-rhythm plays across the lines.
66.211.206.7 (talk) 17:20, 14 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarity

message: You might like the linguistic root, but in contemporary criticism, nobody in the US, and almost nobody in the UK, uses the French spelling anymore. You're really leading students astray if you indicate otherwise.MaggieT 19:32, 2 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm accustomed to seeing 'enjambment', but I like your reasoning. I do, however, think it appropriate to use the title spelling in the article proper. ;-) -- Perey 07:52, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The Oxford English, American Heritage and Merriam-Webster Dictionaries all list enjambment as the primary spelling.  — Miles←☎ 06:30, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: However, the 2004 edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary lists enjambement with an e as the primary spelling.  This might be taken to indicate that at the very least, this alternative spelling should be mentioned in the article as a valid English variant. 86.178.164.87 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 18:40, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

text: Also, in case anyone is wondering whether the above preference is specific to that particular book, it is not: the Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992) gives enjambement as the British spelling, enjambment as American.  The 1996 edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage gives enjambement as the headword but expresses no preference between the two spellings; it simply says that those who pronounce it the French way should spell it with the 'e', and those who pronounce it as if it were English should omit the 'e'. 86.178.164.87 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 18:47, 18 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Spelling

message: This is enjambment too, right?
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Thought it might be nice to have more non-Shakespearean examples... --Gargletheape 10:43, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: example 

message: the first example given (the lines of pope) are not enjambement, regardless of the effect the second line has on the gloss on breast.
and the end-stop example from r&j in fact features enjambement between lines 1 and 2: a glooming peace this morning with it brings/the sun.
the fact that the continuation of line 2 denies that reading does not mean it isn't there initially. it should also be noted that the full stop at the end of line 1 is a modern editorial change, both the quartos and the folio have a comma instead.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.198.201.127 (talk) 11:41, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I fail to see where Pope features an enjambement. Both lines are syntactically self-contained; the line break does not break any syntactic unit or clause at all: it coincides perfectly with a syntactic break. I've commented the Pope example out. (I might add that the IP was completely correct to remove "straight": what about bisexual men, for starters?) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 13:00, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  faulty examples