Lesson #5 - Enjambment

[MrBranchAPLit]

A quick lesson on lines of poetry and how they end: we want to be aware of the differences between an end-stopped line and an enjambed line.

An end-stopped line is one in which the end of the line is marked by some type of pause (this could be a natural speech pause, or a forced pause through the use of punctuation). The end-stopped line often forces one to go through a poem more slowly, controlling your pauses and stops, and effecting the metrical variations and rhythms of the poem. (sometimes referred to as full-stopped lines)

An enjambed line is a line of poetry where the sense of the line is incomplete until you read the next line; the sense of the line hurries on into the next line. The inclusion of enjambed lines within a poem also serve to alter its meter and rhythm. Often they help to speed up a poem, forcing the reader to move quickly from one line to the next with few or no pauses.

Read the following poem and then answer the following questions:

The Dance
by William Carlos Williams

In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling
about the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess.

1. First of all, do you remember this author? (Think back to one of the very first things we read in AP Lit this year)

2. Follow this link http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/htm.../kermesse.html

You can click on the picture to enlarge it.

How well does Williams capture Breughel's painting?

3. Identify one end-stopped line (if you can [img]smile.gif[/img] and discuss why Williams chose to include this stop/pause at the end of the line.

4. Identify one enjambed line and discuss why Williams chose to force the reader on to the next line.

5. In whay way does the poem's form, meter, and/or sounds reinforce its meaning?

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 08, 2008 08:18 PM: Message edited by: Mr Branch ]</font>

[rcln]

1. First of all, do you remember this author? (Think back to one of the very first things we read in AP Lit this year)
Yes, I remember having read his "The Use of Force" at the very beginning of the year. The short story narrates the battle between a doctor and his patient.

2. How well does Williams capture Breughel's painting?
Through its rich visual and auditory imageries, the poem captures the abundant vitality in both the dancers' glowing enthusiasm and the musicians' ecstasy of joy played through their joyful melodies. Williams description of the one-two-steps and the symphony harmonized by the different instruments sets the static painting and its festival into motion.

3. Identify one end-stopped line.

In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The above quote serves as the subject complement that describes the location where "the dancers go around." Thus the end-stopped line is setting up the background in which the theme would be presented.

4. Identify one enjambed line and discuss why Williams chose to force the reader on to the next line.

the dancers go round, they go round and
around...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The enjambment is incorporated in this quote in order to hurry the readers to the next line and therefore achieves to accelerate the pace of the poem and to project the image of successively brisk movements.

5. In what way does the poem's form, meter, and/or sounds reinforce its meaning?
Through the enjambments which are merged into the dance and the music, William develops a tone of delight (characterized by the swift pace)to emphasize the cheers during a celebration.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 15, 2008 08:43 PM: Message edited by: brucelin ]</font>

[dainkelly]

1. First of all, do you remember this author? (Think back to one of the very first things we read in AP Lit this year)

I remember one of the first stories we read about a little girl with a mouth infection which i think was william carlos williams.

2. The poem does depict the picture well, but i only really "saw" what the poem was talking about after i saw the picture. I do think that the poem still depends on the picture to really get an image of it.

3. the first line in the poem is an end-stopped line.

4. The poem has several enjembed lines including

"the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles"

which i think is one of the fastest lines in the poem, te repeated word "and" really gave me a sense of the motion and confusion of the poem, by adding speed to the lines.

5. The enjambment in the poem give us much more speed when reading, it doesnt give you time to soak up every detail, much like the picture itself, which has several things going on at the same time.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 21, 2008 04:21 PM: Message edited by: dainkelly ]</font>

[juanmax]

1.) Yes. The name did sound familiar to me as soon as I saw it. It is a name that sticks in your mind because of the similarity in sound of the first and last name of the author. With further thinking I came to remember that William Carlos Williams is the author of ?Use of Force?.
2.) Williams captures the painting very well in his poem. As I read the poem I imagined an old fashioned European peasant dance. An alternative in my mind was maybe southerners, rednecks, that were dancing with joy. The painting is very similar to what I imagined as I read the poem.
3.) I believe the first line is an end-stopped line. The purpose of the pause at the end of the line is to explain and introduce the work of art that will be discussed in the poem.
4.) All the lines of the poem, except the first one, are enjambed lines where readers are forced to keep reading to understand the incompleteness. Personally, I believe Williams does this to add to the confusion and hectic of the party described in the poem. Williams talks about a moved and happy party, and at the same time writes without much order. I think it might also have to do with readers reading faster, because the dance in the painting was fast as well.
5.) The poem?s disorganized and enjambed form adds to the poem?s tone of gaiety and disorderliness. I did not pay much attention to the form of the poem at first, but I did relate its lack of order with the poem?s topics in an unconscious way.

[montanaro.g]

1. First of all, do you remember this author? (Think back to one of the very first things we read in AP Lit this year)

William Carlos Williams is the author of the short story ?The Use of Force,? a novel that depicts the struggle between a doctor and a little girl.

2. Follow this link http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/htm.../kermesse.html
You can click on the picture to enlarge it.
How well does Williams capture Breughel's painting?

Williams does capture and describe the emotions that are being elicited by the Breughel?s painting. Williams description in the poem are accurate and depicts all that is occurring in the paiting.

3. Identify one end-stopped line (if you can and discuss why Williams chose to include this stop/pause at the end of the line.

?In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,? is an example of an end-stopped line not only because it has a coma at the end, but also because it creates a pause in order to describe the painting. By using the coma and that pause, William Carlos Williams is separating the introduction (if we could say that the first words are the introduction to the poem) from the description of the poem.

4. Identify one enjambed line and discuss why Williams chose to force the reader on to the next line.

??the dancers go round, they go round and
around,??
is an example of an enjambed line because it continues with the thought of the proceeding line by adding the word and to end of the line. At first I thought that using the word ?and? meant that the line was an end-stopped but then I realized that using the word ?and,? in this case, is being used to convey a sense of fastness.

5. In whay way does the poem's form, meter, and/or sounds reinforce its meaning?

By using the enjambment rather than an end-stopped line, Williams is trying to convey to the reader the emotions that are occurring in the painting?happiness, joy, and having a good time. If the poem had pauses at the end of each line, the poem would loose its enthusiasm thereby the poem would be depicting accurately the emotions of the painting.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ April 15, 2008 11:01 PM: Message edited by: montanaro.g ]</font>

[cjkb90]

1. I remember him and having read "The Use of Force". I liked that one a lot more. At first sight, this poem seems too simple.

2. The poem captures Breughel's painting well in depicting precise imagery through words. What we see is one great artist paying homage to another.

3. An end stopped line is used at the very end, because he has to use it at that point, the poem has to stop eventually.

4. "the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the"
Between these lines there is an enjamble because he wants the reader to get the sense of movement as he describes the dancers going "round and around".


5. The meter reinforces the meaning. This is because it gives it a very fast paced read. The fast paced read then influences the reader to get the feeling that he is participating in the dance himself.

[mariecburt]

1. First of all, do you remember this author? (Think back to one of the very first things we read in AP Lit this year)

Yes, he was the author of ?The use of Force?

2. Follow this link http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/htm.../kermesse.html
You can click on the picture to enlarge it.
How well does Williams capture Breughel's painting?

This link didn?t open for me, but I can imagine what it would look like through Williams imagery and descriptive language making me practically seeing the scene and the dancing.

3. Identify one end-stopped line (if you can and discuss why Williams chose to include this stop/pause at the end of the line.

In Brueghel's great picture, The Kermess,
I think Williams chose to make this an end-stopped line so it would add more emphasis to the Kermess.

4. Identify one enjambed line and discuss why Williams chose to force the reader on to the next line.

the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
The phrase ?and the? is what makes the reader want to continue to the next line and creates the enjambment so the reader does not pause when reading it.

5. In what way does the poem's form, meter, and/or sounds reinforce its meaning?

The poems disorganized form and meter causes the reader to identify with the subject the author is discussing, dancing, happiness and a carefree feeling.

[hcaceres]

1.First of all, do you remember this author? (Think back to one of the very first things we read in AP Lit this year)

This is the author that wrote ?The Use of Force?, which we used to show how different perspectives affected the story.
2. How well does Williams capture Breughel's painting??
Williams captures Breughel?s paintng in a very effective way. It does so through the intense use of visual and auditory imagery, and how the poem reflects the joy of the musicians. Furthermore, the rich descriptions of the painting gives life to it, as the readers can almost create a mental picture of the work.
3. Identify one end-stopped line.
?In Brueghel's great picture, the Kermess?

This quote acts as a end-stopped line because the subject presents the location while the other part builds on the background to introduce a theme.

4. Identify one enjambed line and discuss why Williams chose to force the reader on to the next line.
A good example would be:
? The dancers go round, they go round and
around...?

This quote is an effective enjambed line because the break and the transition end with which the first line ends makes the readers expectant to the following line. That way, the author can allude to the movements he is describing.

5. In what way does the poem's form, meter, and/or sounds reinforce its meaning??

The poem?s form, meter, and sounds reinforce its meaning by being directly representative of the theme and scenario the poem, itself, discusses. By using an accelerated meter, a peculiar form, and auditory imagery, the author efficiently transmits the meaning of his poem.

[lucas89a]

1. I remember the short story about the imposing doctor struggling with the little girl with a mouth infection.
2. Williams describes the actions taken by most or all of the people in the painting, such as their hips being twisted, etc. He generalizes the picture. What I do not understand, however, is why does he mentions the bagpipes and not, for example, the beer drinking men in the left side; what does he sees in the bagpipes?
3. "...hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling..." He includes this end-stopped line to divide two different actions occuring.
4. "...they go round and around, the squeal and the blare and the tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles tipping their bellies..." The continuous "and" speeds up the meter and makes that long phrase appear shorter and thus making it easier to picture that whole picture as one.
5. As I said on N.4, the fast meter makes one unified meter. This fast meter also creates a tone of chaos: everything is happening at the same time.

[alberto_dacosta]

1. William Carlos Williams, the author of this poem, also wrote "The Use of Force", one of the first short stories we read in the AP English Literature class.

2. I think that the poem illustrates the painting rather truthfully. While the focus is evidently placed on the circle of dancers at the center of the painting as opposed to being placed on the rest of the scene, namely the rowdy taverners on the bottom-left corner of the painting, it does indeed convey the joyous atmosphere that dominates the festive gathering.

3. One of the poem's end-stopped lines is the first verse, where William Carlos Williams follows the word "Kermess" with a comma. I think that William Carlos Williams uses this comma to effectively demonstrate to the reader that the verses that follow the first are a description of "The Kermess", so that the first verse effectively defines the topic of the poem (a painting called "The Kermess") and the following verses elaborate on it (by describing what the painting portrays).

4. There is an enjambment between the second and the third verses of William Carlos Williams' poem (the dancers go round, they go round / and around). The enjambment between the second and the third verses of William Carlos Williams' poem serves to create a faster tone that is coherent with the dancing of the peasants in the painting, allowing the poem to convey the sense of happiness and excitement portrayed in the dancing peasants in the painting.

5. William Carlos Williams' poem unites verses through enjambments and is characterized by both assonance and consonance ("prance" and "dance", for instance). The assonance and the consonance add some sense of musicality to the poem, whereas the enjambment contributes to a faster tone. Both of these techniques help create a jovial tone and a lighter rhythm that are coherent with the painting's festive and happy style.