Line (poetry)
Encyclopedia
A line is a unit of language into which a poem or play
is divided, which operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with grammatical structures, such as the sentence
or clauses in sentences. Although the word for a single poetic line is verse
, that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally.
A distinct numbered group of lines in verse is normally called a stanza
.
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.
In Western literary traditions, use of line is arguably the principle 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 Degrees of license). In such writing, simple visual appearance on a page
(or any other written layout) remains sufficient to determine poetic line, and this sometimes leads to a "charge" that the work in question is no longer a poem but "chopped up prose". A dropped line
is a line broken into two parts, with the second indented to remain visually sequential.
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 Metre
.)
One visual convention that is optionally used to convey a traditional use of line in printed settings (in languages represented by alphabet
ic scripts) 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 end-rhyme, may also strongly indicate how lines occur in verse.
In the speaking of verse, a line ending may be pronounced using a momentary 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 run-on.
can be indicated by the forward slash (/). For example: ...What in me is dark,/ Illumine! what is low, raise and support! (Milton
, Paradise Lost
). A stanza break can be indicated by the forward slash doubled (//).
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 poems in which the aural component stretches the concept of line beyond any purely semantic coherence.
At another extreme, the so-called prose poem simply eschews poetic line altogether.
, while one of the most common of traditional lines in surviving classical Latin
and Greek
prosody was the hexameter
. Classical Sanskrit
poetry, such as the Ramayana
and Mahabharata
, was most famously composed using the shloka
.
Sometimes the cultural conventions for ordering lines in one language do not readily translate into another. For example, it is not clear that line-forms in English
which claim to emulate examples of the Chinese
or Japanese
"line" in forms such as haiku
or renga
by syllable count can really be said to be meaningful counterparts due to the profoundly different structures of the languages in question.
Pioneers of the free-er use of line in Western culture
include Whitman
and Apollinaire
.
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
is divided, which operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with grammatical structures, such as the sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
or clauses in sentences. Although the word for a single poetic line is verse
Verse (poetry)
A verse is formally a single line in a metrical composition, e.g. poetry. However, the word has come to represent any division or grouping of words in such a composition, which traditionally had been referred to as a stanza....
, that term now tends to be used to signify poetic form more generally.
A distinct numbered group of lines in verse is normally called a stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
.
General conventions in Western poetry
The conventions that determine what might constitute line in poetry depend upon different constraints, aural characteristics or scriptingWriting system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
conventions for any given language. On the whole, where relevant, a line is generally determined either by units of rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
or repeating aural patterns in recitation
Recitation
A recitation is a presentation made by a student to demonstrate knowledge of a subject or to provide instruction to others. In some academic institutions the term is used for a presentation by a teaching assistant or instructor, under the guidance of a senior faculty member, that supplements...
that can also be marked by other features such as rhyme
Rhyme
A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds in two or more words and is most often used in poetry and songs. The word "rhyme" may also refer to a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.-Etymology:...
or alliteration
Alliteration
In language, alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of Three or more words or phrases. Alliteration has historically developed largely through poetry, in which it more narrowly refers to the repetition of a consonant in any syllables that, according to...
, or by patterns of syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
-count.
In Western literary traditions, use of line is arguably the principle feature which distinguishes poetry from prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
. 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 Degrees of license). In such writing, simple visual appearance on a page
Page (paper)
A page is one side of a leaf of paper. It can be used as a measurement of documenting or recording quantity .-The page in typography:...
(or any other written layout) remains sufficient to determine poetic line, and this sometimes leads to a "charge" that the work in question is no longer a poem but "chopped up prose". A dropped line
Dropped line
In poetry, a dropped line is a line which is broken into two lines, but where the second part is indented to remain sequential visually. For example, in the poem "The Other Side of the River" by Charles Wright, the first and second lines form a dropped line, as do the fourth and fifth lines:Dropped...
is a line broken into two parts, with the second indented to remain visually sequential.
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
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
in question. (See Metre
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
.)
One visual convention that is optionally used to convey a traditional use of line in printed settings (in languages represented by alphabet
Alphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
ic scripts) 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 end-rhyme, may also strongly indicate how lines occur in verse.
In the speaking of verse, a line ending may be pronounced using a momentary pause
Pausa
In linguistics, pausa is the end of a prosodic unit, such as an utterance. Some sound laws specifically operate in pausa only; for example, certain phonemes may be pronounced differently at the end of a word, when no other word follows within the same prosodic unit, such as in citation form...
, 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 run-on.
Indicating line-break in prose quotation
In quotations of verse, line breaksLine break (poetry)
A line break in poetry is when the line of a poem ceases to extend, and a new line starts; within the standard conventions of Western literature, this is usually but not always at the left margin...
can be indicated by the forward slash (/). For example: ...What in me is dark,/ Illumine! what is low, raise and support! (Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
, Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
). A stanza break can be indicated by the forward slash doubled (//).
Degrees of license
In more "free" forms, and in so-called free verseFree verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
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
Page layout
Page layout is the part of graphic design that deals in the arrangement and style treatment of elements on a page.- History and development :...
.
One extreme deviation from a conventional rule for line can occur in concrete poetry
Concrete poetry
Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on....
where the primacy of the visual component may over-ride or subsume poetic line in the generally regarded sense, or sound poems in which the aural component stretches the concept of line beyond any purely semantic coherence.
At another extreme, the so-called prose poem simply eschews poetic line altogether.
Examples
The most famous and widely used line of verse in English prosody is the iambic pentameterIambic pentameter
Iambic pentameter is a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama. The term describes the particular rhythm that the words establish in that line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called "feet"...
, while one of the most common of traditional lines in surviving classical Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
prosody was the hexameter
Hexameter
Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...
. Classical Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
poetry, such as the Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
and Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
, was most famously composed using the shloka
Shloka
A ' is a category of verse line developed from the Vedic Anuṣṭubh. It is the basis for Indian Epic verse, and may be considered the Indian verse form par excellence, occurring, as it does, far more frequently than any other meter in classical Sanskrit poetry. The Mahabharata and Ramayana, for...
.
Sometimes the cultural conventions for ordering lines in one language do not readily translate into another. For example, it is not clear that line-forms in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
which claim to emulate examples of the Chinese
Chinese literature
Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...
or Japanese
Japanese literature
Early works of Japanese literature were heavily influenced by cultural contact with China and Chinese literature, often written in Classical Chinese. Indian literature also had an influence through the diffusion of Buddhism in Japan...
"line" in forms such as haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
or renga
Renga
' is a genre of Japanese collaborative poetry. A renga consists of at least two or stanzas, usually many more. The opening stanza of the renga, called the , became the basis for the modern haiku form of poetry....
by syllable count can really be said to be meaningful counterparts due to the profoundly different structures of the languages in question.
Pioneers of the free-er use of line in Western culture
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
include Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
and Apollinaire
Guillaume Apollinaire
Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....
.
See also
- Line break (poetry)Line break (poetry)A line break in poetry is when the line of a poem ceases to extend, and a new line starts; within the standard conventions of Western literature, this is usually but not always at the left margin...
- PausaPausaIn linguistics, pausa is the end of a prosodic unit, such as an utterance. Some sound laws specifically operate in pausa only; for example, certain phonemes may be pronounced differently at the end of a word, when no other word follows within the same prosodic unit, such as in citation form...
- Active listeningActive listeningActive listening is a communication technique that requires the listener to understand, interpret, and evaluate what they hear. The ability to listen actively can improve personal relationships through reducing conflicts, strengthening cooperation, and fostering understanding.When interacting,...
- Line (music)
- Run-on sentenceRun-on sentenceA run-on sentence is a sentence in which two or more independent clauses are joined without appropriate punctuation or conjunction. It is generally considered a stylistic error, though it is occasionally used in literature and may be used as a rhetorical device...
- Principles of organization
- Repetition (music)Repetition (music)Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. One often stated idea is that repetition should be in balance with the initial statements and variations in a piece. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme...
- Canons of page constructionCanons of page constructionThe canons of page construction are a set of principles in the field of book design used to describe the ways that page proportions, margins and type areas of books are constructed....
- Graphic designGraphic designGraphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...