Editing Line (poetry)

{{Short description|Subdivision of a poem}}
A '''line''' is a unit of writing into which a [[poem]] or [[Play (theatre)|play]] is divided: literally, a single row of text.  The use of a line operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with [[grammatical]] structures, such as the [[sentence (linguistics)|sentence]] or single clauses in sentences. Although the word for a single poetic line is ''[[Verse (poetry)|verse]]'', that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://poetryarchive.org/glossary/line/|title=Line - Glossary}}</ref> A '''line break''' is the termination of the line of a poem and the beginning of a new line.

The process of arranging words using lines and line breaks is known as ''lineation'', and is one of the defining features of poetry.<ref name="Hazelton">{{cite web |last1=Hazelton |first1=Rebecca |author-link1=Rebecca Hazelton |title=Learning the Poetic Line |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70144/learning-the-poetic-line |publisher=[[Poetry Foundation]] |access-date=5 June 2019 |date=September 8, 2014 |quote=Some critics go so far as to say that lineation is the defining characteristic of poetry, and many would say it’s certainly one major difference between most poetry and prose.}}</ref> A distinct numbered group of lines in verse is normally called a ''[[stanza]]''. A title, in certain poems, is considered a line.


Poyo! -Kirby

==General conventions in Western poetry==
Conventions that determine what might constitute '''line''' in poetry depend upon different constraints, aural characteristics or [[writing system|scripting]] conventions for any given language. On the whole, where relevant, a line is generally determined either by units of [[rhythm]] or repeating [[aural]] patterns in [[recitation]] that can also be marked by other features such as [[rhyme]] or [[alliteration]], or by patterns of [[syllable]]-count.<ref>See, for example, the account in Geoffrey N Leech ''A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry'', Longman, 1969. Section 7.3 "Metre and the Line of Verse", pp.111-19 in the 1991 edition.</ref>

In Western literary traditions, use of line is arguably the principal feature which distinguishes poetry from [[prose]]. Even in poems where formal metre or rhyme is weakly observed or absent, the convention of line continues on the whole to be observed, at least in written representations, although there are exceptions (see ''[[Line (poetry)#Degrees of license|Degrees of license]]''). In such writing, simple visual appearance on a [[Page (paper)|page]] (or any other written layout) remains sufficient to determine poetic line, and this sometimes leads to the suggestion that the work in question is no longer a poem but "chopped up prose".<ref>See [http://www.webdelsol.com/LITARTS/Boston_Comment/bostonc1.htm] for an example.</ref> A [[dropped line]] is a line broken into two parts, with the second indented to remain visually sequential.

In the standard conventions of [[Western literature]], the line break is usually but not always at the left margin. Line breaks may occur mid-clause, creating [[enjambment]], a term that literally means 'to straddle'. Enjambment "tend[s] to increase the pace of the poem",<ref name="Norton Enjambment Endstop">{{cite book|title=The Norton Anthology of Poetry|url=https://archive.org/details/nortonanthologyp00ferg_618|url-access=limited|year=2005|publisher=W.W. Norton & Company|isbn=0-393-97920-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/nortonanthologyp00ferg_618/page/n2098 2034]|editor1=Margaret Ferguson |editor2=Mary Jo Salter |editor3=Jon Stallworthy }}</ref>  whereas end-stopped lines, which are lines that break on [[caesura]]s (thought-pauses<ref>[http://classroom.synonym.com/ellipses-poem-3994.html 'Classroom synonym'.com]</ref> often represented by [[ellipsis]]), emphasize these silences and slow the poem down.<ref name="Norton Enjambment Endstop" />

Line breaks may also serve to signal a change of movement or to suppress or highlight certain internal features of the poem, such as a [[rhyme]] or [[slant rhyme]].
Line breaks can be a source of dynamism, providing a method by which poetic forms imbue their contents with intensities and corollary meanings that would not have been possible to the same degree in other forms of text.

Distinct forms of line, as defined in various verse traditions, are usually categorised according to different rhythmical, aural or visual patterns and metrical length appropriate to the [[language]] in question. (See [[Meter (poetry)|Metre]].)

One visual convention that is optionally used to convey a traditional use of line in printed settings is [[capitalisation]] of the first letter of the first word of each line regardless of other punctuation in the sentence, but it is not necessary to adhere to this. Other formally patterning elements, such as [[rhyme#Classification by position|end-rhyme]], may also strongly indicate how lines occur in verse.

In the [[Recitation of poetry|speaking of verse]], a line ending may be pronounced using a momentary [[pausa|pause]], especially when its metrical composition is ''end-stopped'', or it may be elided such that the utterance can flow seamlessly over the line break in what can be called [[enjambment|''run-on'']].

When verse is quoted within sentences in prose articles or critical essays, line breaks can be indicated by the [[forward slash]] (/); for example: "What in me is dark,/ Illumine, what is low raise and support,/ That to the height of this great argument/ I may assert eternal Providence,/ And justify the ways of God to men." ([[John Milton|Milton]], ''Paradise Lost''). A stanza break can be indicated by the forward slash doubled (//).

==Degrees of license==

In more "free" forms, and in [[free verse]] in particular, conventions for the use of line become, arguably, more arbitrary and more visually determined such that they may only be properly apparent in typographical representation and/or [[page layout]].

One extreme deviation from a conventional rule for line can occur in [[concrete poetry]] where the primacy of the visual component may over-ride or subsume poetic line in the generally regarded sense, or [[sound poem]]s in which the aural component stretches the concept of line beyond any purely semantic coherence.

At another extreme, the [[prose poem]] simply eschews poetic line altogether.

==Examples of line breaks==
{{blockquote|
''scolds Forbid''<br/>
''den Stop''<br/>
''Must''<br/> n't Don't ''
: {{em dash}} [[E. E. Cummings]]}}

The line break 'must/n't' allows a double reading of the word as both 'must' and 'mustn't', whereby the reader is made aware that old age both enjoins and forbids the activities of youth. At the same time, the line break subverts 'mustn't': the forbidding of a certain activity—in the poem's context, the moral control the old try to enforce upon the young—only serves to make that activity more enticing.

While Cummings's line breaks are used in a poetic form that is intended to be appreciated through a visual, printed medium, line breaks are also present in poems predating the advent of printing.

===Shakespeare===
Examples are to be found, for instance, in [[Shakespeare's sonnets]]. Here are two examples of this technique operating in different ways in Shakespeare's ''[[Cymbeline]]'':

In the first example, the line break between the last two lines ''cuts'' them apart, emphasizing the cutting off of the head:

{{Blockquote|''With his own sword,''<br/>
''Which he did wave against my throat, I have ta'en''<br/>
''His head from him.''|[[William Shakespeare]]|[[Cymbeline]]}}

In the second example, the text before the line break retains a meaning in isolation from the contents of the new line.  This meaning is encountered by the reader before it being modified by the text after the line break, which clarifies that, instead of "I, as a person, as a mind, am 'absolute,'" it 'really' means: "I am absolutely sure it was Cloten":

{{Blockquote|''I am absolute;''<br/>
'''Twas very Cloten.''|[[William Shakespeare]]|[[Cymbeline]]}}

==Metre==
In every type of literature there is a metrical pattern that can be described as "basic" or even "national"{{dubious|date=March 2017}}. The most famous and widely used line of verse in English [[Prosody (poetry)|prosody]] is the [[iambic pentameter]],<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/art/metre-prosody#ref221046 Metre, prosody at Encyclopedia Britannica]</ref> while one of the most common of traditional lines in surviving classical [[Latin]] and [[Greek language|Greek]] prosody was the [[hexameter]].<ref>[http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/endecasillabo_(Enciclopedia-dell'Italiano)/ Hexameter, poetry at Encyclopaedia Britannica.]</ref> In modern Greek poetry hexameter was replaced by line of fifteen syllables. In French poetry [[French Alexandrine|alexandrine]]<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/art/alexandrine Alexandrine, prosody at Encyclopaedia Britannica]</ref> is the most typical pattern. In [[Italians|Italian]] literature the [[Hendecasyllable#In Italian poetry|hendecasyllable]],<ref>[http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/endecasillabo_(Enciclopedia-dell'Italiano)/ Claudio Ciociola, Endecasillabo at Encyclopedia italiana.]</ref> which is a metre of eleven syllables, is the most common line. In Serbian ten syllable lines were used in long epic poems. In Polish poetry two types of line were very popular, an 11-syllable one, based on Italian verse and 13-syllable one, based both on Latin verse and French alexandrine. Classical [[Sanskrit]] poetry, such as the [[Ramayana]] and [[Mahabharata]], was most famously composed using the 32-syllable verse, derived from the [[Vedic Sanskrit|Vedic]] ''[[anuṣṭubh]]'' metre called [[shloka]].<ref name="monierwilliamssloka">{{cite book |author=Monier Monier-Williams |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_3NWAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA1029 |title=A Sanskrit-English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1923 |pages=1029–1030}}</ref>

* English iambic pentameter:

:Like to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince,
:I will begin — as is, these seven years now,
:My daily wont — and read a History
:(Written by one whose deft right hand was dust
:To the last digit, ages ere my birth)
:Of all my predecessors, Popes of Rome:
:For though mine ancient early dropped the pen,
:Yet others picked it up and wrote it dry,
:Since of the making books there is no end.
::(Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book 10, Book The Pope, lines 1-9)

* Latin hexameter:

:Arma virumque canō, Trōiae quī prīmus ab orīs
:Ītaliam, fātō profugus, Lāvīniaque vēnit
:lītora, multum ille et terrīs iactātus et altō
:vī superum saevae memorem Iūnōnis ob īram;
:multa quoque et bellō passūs, dum conderet urbem,               
:inferretque deōs Latiō, genus unde Latīnum,
:Albānīque patrēs, atque altae moenia Rōmae. 
::(Virgil, Aeneid, Book I, lines 1-7)

* French alexandrine:

:Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,
:Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs :
:Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles,
:Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.
::(Arthur Rimbaud, Le bateau ivre, lines 1-4)

* Italian hendecasyllable:

:Per me si va ne la città dolente,
:per me si va ne l'etterno dolore,
:per me si va tra la perduta gente.

:Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;
:fecemi la divina podestate,
:la somma sapïenza e ’l primo amore. 
::(Dante Alighieri, Divina commedia, Inferno, Canto III, lines 1-6)

Pioneers of the freer use of line in [[Western culture]] include [[Walt Whitman|Whitman]] and [[Guillaume Apollinaire|Apollinaire]].

==Characteristics==
Where the lines are broken in relation to the ideas in the poem it affects the feeling of reading the poetry.  For example, the feeling may be jagged or startling versus soothing and natural, which can be used to reinforce or contrast the ideas in the poem.  Lines are often broken between words, but there is certainly a great deal of poetry where at least some of the lines are broken in the middles of words: this can be a [[Rhetorical device|device]] for achieving inventive [[rhyme scheme]]s.

In general, line breaks divide the poetry into smaller units called lines (this is a modernisation of the term [[verse (poetry)|verse]]), which are often interpreted in terms of their self-contained meanings and aesthetic values: hence the term "[[good line]]".  Line breaks, [[Indentation (typesetting)|indentation]]s, and the lengths of individual words determine the visual [[shape]] of the poetry on the page, which is a common aspect of poetry but never the sole purpose of a line break.  A [[dropped line]] is a line broken into two parts, in which the second part is indented to remain visually sequential through spacing. In metric poetry, the places where the lines are broken are determined by the decision to have the lines composed from specific numbers of [[syllable]]s.

[[Prose poetry]] is poetry without line breaks in accordance to [[paragraph]] structure as opposed to [[stanza]].  [[Enjambment]] is a line break in the middle of a sentence, phrase or clause, or one that offers internal (sub)text or rhythmically jars for added emphasis.  Alternation between enjambment and [[end-stopped line]]s is characteristic of some [[Complexity|complex]] and well composed poetry, such as in [[John Milton|Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]''.

A new line can begin with a lowercase or capital letter.  New lines beginning with lowercase letters vaguely correspond with the shift from earlier to later poetry: for example, the poet [[John Ashbery]] usually begins his lines with capital letters prior to his 1991 book-length poem "Flow-Chart", whereas in and after "Flow-Chart" he almost invariably begins lines with lowercase letters unless the beginning of the line is also the beginning of a new [[Sentence (linguistics)|sentence]].  There is, however, some much earlier poetry where new lines begin with lowercase letters.

Beginning a line with an uppercase letter when the beginning of the line does ''not'' coincide with the beginning of a new sentence is referred to by some as "[[majusculation]]". (this is an invented term derived from [[majuscule]]). 
The correct term is a [[coroneted]] verse.

In [[T.S. Eliot]]'s [[The Waste Land]], where ambiguity abounds, a line break in the opening (''ll''. 5–7) starts things off.
{{Blockquote|Winter kept us warm, covering<br/>
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding <br/>
A little life with dried tubers.}}
Because the lines start with capitalized letters, Eliot could be saying "Earth" as the planet or "earth" as the soil.

==See also==
* [[Active listening]]
* [[Caesura]]
* [[Canons of page construction]]
* [[Ellipsis]]
* [[Enjambment]]
* [[Graphic design]]
* [[Part (music)]]
* [[Pausa]]
* [[Composition (visual arts)#Principles of organization|Principles of organization]]
* [[Repetition (music)]]
* [[Run-on sentence]]

==References==

{{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Line (Poetry)}}
[[Category:Narrative techniques]]
[[Category:Stanzaic form]]
[[Category:Poetic rhythm]]