Enjambment Examples: Definition and Analysis in Poetry
Enjambment is when a line of poetry runs on into the next without a pause — the syntax crosses the line break, pulling the reader forward. The word comes from the French for "striding over." When Plath writes "Dying / Is an art", the line break isolates "Dying" as a subject before "Is an art" arrives to complete the sentence. That crossing is enjambment, and it is one of the most powerful tools in a poet's toolkit.
Enjambment, End-Stopped Lines, Caesura, and Volta
Enjambment
A line of poetry that runs on into the next without a pause — the syntax crosses the line break. The reader is pulled forward; meaning is suspended across the white space.
End-stopped line
A line that ends with a natural pause — a period, comma, or semicolon. The line is self-contained; the reader pauses before continuing. Closure at each line.
Caesura
A pause within a line of poetry, marked by punctuation or a natural breath. "To be, or not to be" — the comma creates a caesura mid-line. Internal silence.
Volta
A turn in the argument or mood of a poem — associated with the sonnet (at line 9 or 13) but appearing in any form. The moment when the poem pivots.
8 Enjambment Examples
These examples show enjambment doing specific work — not as decoration but as a structural decision that shapes meaning. In each case, the line break is where the poem earns its effect.
William Blake — "The Tyger" (1794)
"Tyger Tyger, burning bright In the forests of the night"
The enjambment carries the fire into the darkness — reading forward creates the burning motion. "Bright" lands with emphasis at the line's end, then the darkness arrives on the next line. The tiger burns through the break into the forests.
John Keats — "Ode to a Nightingale" (1819)
"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk"
The enjambment delays the explanation — "pains" lands with full weight at the line's end, then its object arrives on the next line: "My sense." The syntax withholds what is pained, creating a moment of suspended hurt before the resolution.
William Wordsworth — "Tintern Abbey" (1798)
"Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters!"
"Length" is stretched across the break — the word itself enacts its meaning. The enjambment makes the reader experience the length of those winters: they must cross the white space, as Wordsworth crosses five years. Time becomes physical in the reading.
John Milton — Paradise Lost (1667)
"Him the Almighty Power Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky"
The enjambment creates a falling motion — "Power" suspends at the line's end, then the verb "Hurled" arrives with sudden violence on the next line. Satan's expulsion is enacted in the syntax: the reader is hurled forward by the break just as Satan is hurled from heaven.
Gerard Manley Hopkins — "God's Grandeur" (1877)
"It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness"
The first line is end-stopped — the semicolon closes it fully. Then the enjambed second line propels the accumulation forward without pause. The contrast between closure and opening creates the sense of something that cannot be contained: it flames out, it gathers, it continues.
Sylvia Plath — "Lady Lazarus" (1962)
"Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well."
"Dying" as a single enjambed word — its isolation makes it the entire subject of the line before "Is an art" arrives to qualify it. The word hangs alone in white space. Plath's enjambment is the most extreme version: a single word as a line is an argument about the weight of that word.
E.E. Cummings — "anyone lived in a pretty how town" (1940)
"anyone lived in a pretty how town (with up so floating many bells down)"
Enjambment as formal disruption — Cummings fragments syntax across lines to create new meanings at each break. "How town" and "bells down" are enjambed into nonsense that becomes sense on re-reading. The line break is not a pause but a hinge between two simultaneous meanings.
Seamus Heaney — "Digging" (1966)
"Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests; snug as a gun."
The enjambment holds the tension between "finger and my thumb" and "The squat pen" — the reader crosses the break as Heaney holds the pen, suspended. The end-stopped couplet ("snug as a gun") then provides resolution: the tension of the enjambment is released into a statement.
Why Enjambment Works
Movement and suspension
The line break creates a moment of suspension — the syntax is unfinished, the meaning is incomplete, the reader must continue. This suspension is not neutral: the word at the end of an enjambed line receives emphasis precisely because it hangs there, awaiting completion. Milton puts "Power" at the end of its line before "Hurled headlong" arrives. The reader holds "Power" for a beat — and then the violence of the verb arrives with greater force for the waiting.
The line break as unit of meaning
In enjambed poetry, the line break becomes a semantic unit — not just a breath mark but a place where meaning is made. The last word of an enjambed line can simultaneously complete one phrase and begin another, existing in two grammatical states at once. Poets who understand enjambment understand that the white space to the right of the line is not emptiness but pressure — the reader crosses it, and the crossing is part of the poem's experience.
How to Use Enjambment
Enjamb to create forward momentum
The reader is pulled through the break — they cannot stop because the syntax is unfinished. Use enjambment when you want the poem to accelerate or when you want to defer the completion of a thought. Milton enjambs constantly in Paradise Lost because the poem is always falling forward.
End-stop to create emphasis
A line that closes on itself concentrates weight on the final word. The reader pauses before the next line, and that pause is attention given to the final word. "The trees are coming into leaf." The period stops the reader; "leaf" receives the emphasis.
Use the line break as a moment of double meaning
The last word of an enjambed line can be read both as the end of one phrase and the beginning of the next — the word exists in two grammatical states simultaneously. Plath's "Dying / Is an art" — "Dying" is first a subject in itself, then the subject of "Is an art." Both readings are true.
Vary between enjambment and end-stopping
A poem of all enjambments feels breathless — the reader is never allowed to pause. All end-stopped lines feel static, even plodding. The contrast between them creates the poem's rhythm: enjambment as motion, end-stopping as rest. The interplay is what makes the poem feel alive.
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The craft of the line break develops through practice — writing poems, reading them aloud, feeling where the pauses are and where they should be. Hearth's focused writing environment gives you the space to work on your poetry daily.
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