Enjambement is the breaking of a syntactic unit (a phrase, clause, or sentence) by the end of a line or between two verses. Its opposite is end-stopping, where each linguistic unit corresponds with the line length. The term is directly borrowed from French. In English, it is also frequently spelt enjambment; that spelling is preferred by the Oxford English Dictionary. According to the OED, the word can be pronounced as an English word or as a French word. A phrase is a group of words that functions as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. ... A clause is a group of words consisting of a subject and a predicate, although, in non-finite clauses, the subject is often not explicitly given. ... In linguistics, a sentence is a unit of language, characterised in most languages by the presence of a finite verb. ... End-stopping is a feature in poetry where the syntactic unit (phrase, clause, or sentence) corresponds in length to the line. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is a dictionary published by the Oxford University Press (OUP). ...

The following lines from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595) are completely end-stopped: William Shakespeare—born April 1564; baptised April 26, 1564; died April 23, 1616 (O.S.), May 3, 1616 (N.S.)—has a reputation as the greatest of all writers in English. ... The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a play by William Shakespeare concerning the fate of two young lovers who would do anything to be together. ... Events January 30 - William Shakespeares Romeo and Juliet is performed for the first time. ...

A gloomy peace this morning with it brings.

The sun for sorrow will not show his head.

Go hence, to have more talk and these sad things.

Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished.

Each line is formally correspondent with a unit of thought — in this case, a clause of a sentence. End stopping is more frequent in early Shakespeare: as his style developed, the proportion of enjambement in his plays increased. Scholars such as Goswin König and A. C. Bradley have estimated approximate dates of undated works of Shakespeare by studying the frequency of enjambement. The following lines from The Winter's Tale (c. 1611) are heavily enjambed: Andrew Cecil Bradley (1851 - 1935) was an English literary scholar. ... The Winters Tale is a comedy by William Shakespeare. ... Events June 23 - Henry Hudsons crew maroons him, his son and 7 others in a boat November 1 - At Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeares romantic comedy The Tempest is presented for the first time. ...

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 honourable grief lodged here which burns

Worse than tears drown.

Meaning flows from line to line, and the reader’s eye is pulled forward. Enjambement creates a feeling of acceleration, as the reader is forced to continue reading after the line has ended. It can also make the reader feel uncomfortable or the poem feel like “flow-of-thought” with a sensation of urgency or disorder.

A master of enjambement, E.E. Cummings combinined it with the use of punctuation as an art form: Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962) was an American poet and writer. ...

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

——————————————————— i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

For another example of enjambement in poetry, look at the opening lines of Catullus XIII, ad Fabullum: // Latin Text Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus, si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam cenam, non sine candida puella et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis. ...

Cenabis bene, mi Fabulle, apud me

paucis, si tibi di favent, diebus,

si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam

cenam, non sine candida puella

et vino et sale et omnibus cachinnis.

Here is an English translation, roughly preserving word order:

You will dine well, my Fabullus, at my house

in a few, if the gods favor you, days,

and if you bring with you a good and great

dinner, not without a beautiful girl

and wine and wit and laughs for all.

The phrase si tecum attuleris bonam atque magnam / cenam (“if you bring with you a good and great / dinner”) is sharply enjambed between the third and fourth lines.