Exploring the conceptual implications of poetic line-break: from terminology to phenomenology

Abstract

Apart from the surprising fact of being in lack of lexicographical description, line-break, a term widely used in poetic criticism, will be seen to be highly polysemous. What the term refers to, simply, is far from always clear; not only does it seem capable of changing with contexts referred to, it tends to do so in the extremely volatile fashion of attracting contrary or even contradictory referential meanings. This is the case not only in the terminological community of users as a whole but also, more notably, in individual critical texts. Rather than interpreting such terminological polysemy as a sign of critical deficiency in the observing subjects, a lacking in the very ability to make discrete observations, it is the assumption of this study that the polysemy in question may be regarded as a sign of phenomenal ambiguity in the very object observed. Upon pragmatic inspection, the often manifested confusion of terms designating concepts in the tradition of critical discourse will be seen as the expression of a fundamentally precise observation of an inherent complexity on the part of the object of criticism, the poetic phenomenon of “line-break.”

Keywords:

• poetic terminology
• line-break
• enjambement
• polysemy
• cognitive semantics
• phenomenology

Notes

¹ Cf. Preminger (ed.) (1965, rev. ed. 1974), Abrams (1988), Brogan & Preminger (eds.) (1993), Wales (1989); Deutsch (1981, 4th. ed.), Packard (1989).

² According to Culler, Hollander's study is “the most thorough and perceptive treatment of the subject” (Culler 1975: 184). According to Lawler, Hollander is ”[t]he theoretician of enjambment” (Lawler 1979: 73).

³ On a historical note. The study of terminology is to be deemed useful to the extent that it may help us understand not only how given phenomena happen be termed, but, perhaps less trivially, how our more or less shared habits of conceiving of them may be constituted and interrelated; terminology reflects cultural consciousness.

From the particular point of view of ‘literary science’, it may prove rewarding to study how the various phenomena of literary culture are thus conceived of, on the basis of how the terms by which they are designated happen to be coined; by this approach we may gain insight into what kinds of conceptions, assumed to be the more or less imaginative abstractions of perceptions, inhere in different cultures of literary perception (“interpretive communities”, as Fish has it) at given points in time, and so we may make assumptions about perceptual habits of literary readers as a part of what might be called the history of readerly mentality: different periods of poetic culture clearly seem to favour, indeed to invent, different terms whereby to describe what the members of these cultures seem to perceive, or wish to promote. Significantly, line-break, explicitly denoting some kind of formal rupture while perhaps implicitly connoting some form of disruption, will be witnessed to enter onto the scene of descriptive poetics only upon the explicitly disruptive aesthetic of modernist poetry having made its entrance.

Thus, the conceptual would-be revolutionary implications of line-break have been exploited by certain poet-critics, hence Scully: “line breaks as historically specific social practices”:

At best a poem is not a thing but a practice. A social practice. At the very least it is a social function. But any poem is socially conditioned, constituted and effected insofar as it is produced by, about, through and for. Line breaks, as poetic practice, threaten to rupture the ideological prophylaxis imposed on all production or potential production by routine behavior, routine ‘perceptions’ and routine ‘truth.’ Such line breaks are not boundaries but areas of engagement, of interaction between work and reader. (Scully 2005 (1988): 145)

Critical questioning of received truths and the validity of established conceptions should indeed be welcomed: this is what criticism about. While the questioning here quoted is no doubt intended to provoke the raising of traditional (bourgeois) critical eyebrows, it does however succeed also in raising a few metacritical questions. First, most fundamentally, does it seem reasonable assume that the critic so expressly a proponent of poetico-social “rupture” would have thought of arguing along the lines quoted if the critical vocabulary employed, in fact most eloquently exploited, had not already been supplied by the modern critical tradition? That is to say, a tradition of terminological trading complete with inherently encoded, indeed socially conditioned, patterns of conceptual behaviour? (By such supply of terminology (implied epistemology), and by its uncritical because conceptually unreflected acceptance, in fact consumption, on the part of the would-be poetico-social critic – so it seems all too easy to counter-argue – an artificial demand, one of internalised ‘false consciousness’ in the Marxist sense, is expressed.) For critical elucidation, we may conduct but a simple experiment of counterfactual reflection, imagining, now, the poetico-social critic to have been given, by historical accident, no alternative but to call the phenomenon by its traditonal, arguably less disruptive-sounding, name of enjambement or line-end (depending on the interpretation of the phenomenal reference in question). If so called, the revolution might have to be called off.

In this way, of course, many a pronouncement of critical conviction, whether of seemingly anticonformist dissent or conformist assent, can be seen to rest, more or less persuasively, on the rhetorical manifestation of such conceptual potentials as may be thought, more or less creatively (depending on originality of inventio), to inhere in terminological meaning. Such occasionally captivating cultural – sometimes subcultural in the sense of idiosyncratically marginal but often not – expressions (some more enduring than others), now, are not necessarily captured by the historiographers of official thought, the recorders of the histories of theoretical ideas: Therefore, such deeper conceptual structures, or patterns of habitual thought, as may however be seen to underlie actual practices of critical thinking, including those of the mainstream persuasion, may well elude the official records, much to the detriment of historical understanding of, say, reading as perhaps actually performed or, in fact no less interestingly, as it is thought (even if not fully consciously or discursively explicitly so) to be performed.

As we shall see, thinking on the subject appears to be, more or less conspicuously, of a metaphorical nature. Now, according to a basic insight of cognitive semantics, metaphor is not a question of naming, linguistically, but of thinking, conceptually. Further investigation into the semantics of metaphorical naming, as far as this hypothesis goes, may lead to insight into not only the pragmatic status of the concept within a given culture of verse reading, but also, no less interestingly, into the phenomenal reality to which it may be seen to refer according to variously reflective readers of verse.

Arguably, it would be untenable to simply infer the perceptual characteristics of a given phenomenon from the semantics of whatever term by which it is traditionally named (cf. what I have described as the etymological fallacy, cf. Kjørup 2003). Still, analysis of the traditional manner of terming the phenomenon does constitute a practical point of departure for reflecting precisely upon (perceived) phenomenal character. In its capacity as handed down, hence historical, terminology becomes a central source for the study of the manners (that is, necessarily, a few among many possible ones, the many being however dominated by the chosen few) of conceiving of the manner of working of the phenomenon itself.

⁴ Link (1985 (1974)), in defining poetry, whose “Einheit heißt Vers”, lucidly observes the phenomenon consist “in regelmäßigem Auslaufen der Zeile vor Ende der Druckzeile plus Zeilenneuansatz ohne Rücksicht auf Sinneinschnitte.” (1985 (1974): 195). That is to say, in the context of the sense at hand, interpolating the concept of line-break in the phenomal equation we get: line-end + newline = line-break ⇒ verse ⇒ poetry.

⁵ As noted by Attridge (1995) apropos of defining line: “Strictly, a segment of a poem determined by layout on the page […]. In metrical verse, used more loosely of a segment of the metrical structure normally laid out as a single line on the page, as in four-beat line, five-beat line.” (1995: 220). With respect to line-break, now, to my intuition, there is a sense in which that term would be employed less aptly to the metrical (auditory) aspect of verse than to the graphical (visual) aspect, the latter being that to which the very concept of line may be said to stand in a relation most literal, line as referring to writing being employed in a sense everything but loose. Here, there is a sense in which the more neutral line-boundary (or, slightly more linguistically-technical, line-juncture), much rather than line-break, would appear the more inclusive term as well.

To account for this intuitive difference, a phenomenologically informed conceptual analysis seems timely. Rather than the concept of boundary, based in the kinaesthetic image schema of containment while seeming to me to focus on the sense of internal continuity of object contained/bounded rather than actualising a (potential) sense of external discontinuity/‘broken-off-ness’ relative to object world beyond the boundary of the container, now, the concept of break, by contrast, does actualise the sense of discontinuity inherent in the phenomenon conceived as characterised by breakage, and it does so, presumably, because it allows for the emergence of the sense of termination inherent in the image schema in which it is based, namely, that of path: break, rather than boundary, then, actualises the sense of linearity; hence, line-break, rather than line-boundary, emerges as the intuitively preferable term for that which, phenomenally, seems the more line-like, namely, the graphical line (“strictly”) rather than the metrical line (“more loosely”).

⁶ The stanza referred to is indeed a celebrated example of the formal-as-poetically-semantic implications of enjambement:

They taste good to her

They taste good

to her. They taste

good to her.

For parallel analyses, in the context of general free verse/enjambement commentary, see Levertov 1982 (1979): 269; Adams 1997: 159.

⁷ Additional evidence in favour of this interpretation is supplied by what we might call the occurence of intertextual phraseology: in commentaries on the phenomenon one of the words most frequently used to describe the effects of enjambement is that of “hesitation”, cf. Furniss & Bath 1996: 49f, 55, 61f, 64, 67, 69, 72, following Davie (1960) and Fish (1967); see also Levertov 1982 (1979): 266. Indeed, the very fact that it occurs in the context of what is potentially a discussion of enjambement all but conditions the reader to infer that such is actually the case.

⁸ The precedent for describing Williams' art of lineation in terms of arbitrariness is none other than Brooks & Warren (1960), apropos of “The Red Wheelbarrow” in particular, free verse in general: “[T]he fact of its being set off in lines has some significance. It is significant, for one thing, because it pretends to be significant. That is, we have to dwell on the line as a unit, even if, by ordinary standards, we can find no unity. The very arbitrariness of the slashing across the prose sentence may be important. The line sett off by this slashing, whatever its content, is brought into special focus. […] The lining is so arbitrary that we have to see the poem in print before we have any notion that it is intended as a poem at all. But the very arbitrariness is the point.” (Brooks & Warren 1960: 173; italics original). As is evident, the formal “arbitrariness” here described, is to be understood not in the semiotic sense, as “non-iconic”, that is, non-significant-as-form, since the “arbitrary” form is indeed described as significant as such.

⁹ Only, relative to the scenario previously encountered, the implication is now that of a figure/ground reversal of perceptual perspectives on motional orientation in imagined space: whereas, in the case of placing, what is placed can be said to be entered into a given configuration, when it comes to entering, the reverse is the case: what is entered into must first be in place. We shall have occasion to return, at the end of the present investigation, to that most significant matter of the spatial as far as conceptualisation of verse linear movement is concerned. See Kjørup (2008) and forthcoming for further elucidation of the cognitive-semantic implications of imaginary movement in verse space.

¹⁰ Possibly, what is alluded to is the notion, perhaps most eloquently argued by Frye (1957), that “when rhythm is variable” as in free verse “there is no point in a run-on line.” (Frye 1957: xxii; a similar view is suggested in Arnholtz (1966: 178): for a critique of the Fryean argument, cf. Kjørup 2003: 275ff): that is, the view that when the formal premise of “metered poetry”, as Adams has it, does not obtain, then neither does the functional possibility of “enjambment” (because this concept is somehow inherently classically metrical, cf. French origin of the term?), hence only “line break” is to be spoken of. Certainly, the view held by Lehman (1992) seems a more reasonable one: “All truly that vers libre retained of traditional verse is its grammar of emphasis – for example, its potential for enjambment, the use of the turn at the end of a line for the purpose of emphasizing a word or disjointing a phrase into significantly separate parts.” (Lehman 1992: 8f). In fact, this point is extensively argued in an attempt of mine towards a poetics of verse (Kjørup 2003).

¹¹ The term double syntax is coined by Ricks (1963); a more comprehensive critical concept, termed the double pattern, employed to account for double syntax, grammetrical ambiguity etc., is found in Bradford (1993, 1997).

¹² Ordbog over det Danske Sprog 2: “bryde” (ed. Kr. Sandfeld), 1920: 1242ff.

¹³ In the poetics of Sven Møller Kristensen (1958) similar conceptions are evident, indeed similarly in the metaphorical image of cutting, in that enjambement is described as “the scissoring of a sentence at the end of a line of verse [dette at en sætning klippes over ved en verslinies slutning]” (1958: 50). In Wesling's The Scissors of Meter: Grammetrics and Reading (1996), a comprehensive critical view is unfolded, extending to the very title, from this very same cutting metaphor; drawing on theoretical formulations in Meijer's seminal “Verbal Art as an Interference between a Cognitive and an Aesthetic Structure” (1973), once again neatly summarised in the title, the grammetrist conceives of the one (aesthetic) structural dimension of the verbal work of art in the image of one shear of the scissors, the other (“cognitive”, i.e. linguistic) as the other shear. In the central grammetrical phenomenon of enjambement, as it happens, these two dimensions are represented by the verse line and the syntactic sequence, respectively.

¹⁴ Cf. the classical grammatical cases of locative and instrumentalis, respectively.

¹⁵ Commenting on a passage by Coleridge, Attridge observes how “the meter drives us over the phrasal breaks within the line and the phrases drive us over the metrical breaks at line-end.” (1995: 197) Similarly, “[i]n the passage by Coleridge, the strongest [phrasal] breaks […] occur within the line […] By placing these breaks within the line, Coleridge further strengthens the onward movement of the poem […] The strongest breaks in the lines fall […] near to the mid-point of the metrical structure […] The result of this tendency to use mid-line breaks is […] a certain relaxed formality.” (1995: 198f).

¹⁶ Cf. the French tradition for distinguishing between enjambement interne (i.e., on the caesura) and enjambement externe (i.e., in the usual, interlinear sense), cf. Aquien 1993: 124f. – Certainly, a distinction could be upheld, explicitly, between internal and external line-breaks in reference to intralinear syntactic discontinuation (caesura)/linear continuation and interlinear syntactic continuation/linear discontinuation, respectively; to refer to such formally widely diverse phenomena by the same (if premodified) term, however, might prove impractical, in that it demands that the user shift between conceptual schemas symmetrically opposite in terms of figure/ground (agent/patient): what breaks what, thus, radically changes.

¹⁷ Intuitively, it seems, exchange between co-hyponymous terms relative to perceived quality of motional action (cut/break) at whichever spatial location (mid-/end-line) appears unproblematic (whereas exchange of antonymous terms relative to spatial location itself does not). Thus, Jakobson (1987 (1970)) conjoins the concepts unhesitatingly, indeed repeatedly: “[…] the third foot of the iambic pentameter is cut by a break, an obligatory word boundary […] this feminine, caesural break […]” (1987 (1970): 199). Quite similarly, Saran (1904), in his discussion of “Die Lanke (Cäsur)” (1904: 420), observes this phenomenon to constitute “für den Alexandriner der alten und klassischen Zeit durchaus ein Schnitt, ein syntaktischer Bruch.” (1904: 421). In modern Swedish terminology, the concept of syntactic caesura is called versklyvning (verse-cleaving) or versbrytning (verse-breaking): conceptual invocation of cutting thus interchanging with breaking, synonymy seems fully confirmed in critical practice.

¹⁸ Note that, like the German synonym Zeilensprung, the French taxonym (Croft & Cruse 2002) for enjambement, rejet, is a metaphor drawing on the semantic domain of moving (leaping) or being moved (thrown), respectively, by a path through the air: in the former conceptual scenario, syntax is a bodily agent (subject) of motion, in the latter a non-bodily patient (object) of an implied agent of motion. As the special kind of enjambement defined as a small syntactic segment ‘thrown’ (rejeté) from one line on to next (as in Hopkins' famous: “‘Now tell me, child, your choice: What shall I buy | You?’ – ‘Father, what you buy me I like best.’”), the very domain of throwing appears the more intuitively apt for the phenomenal fact of it being possible, in this physical world of ours, to throw only such objects as are indeed smaller/lighter than ourselves. (For an extended analysis of the phenomenology of imaginary bodily movement in verse, see Kjørup (2008) and forthcoming.

¹⁹ Original reads: “Når den klassiske metrik forholdt sig stærkt kritisk til denne virkning, hang det selvsagt sammen med, at enjambementet med sine konfliktskabende “breaks” truede den regelmæssige verdensorden, der var nedlagt i de metriske former. Herved pointeres det individuelle, ligesom det slører perspektivet i selve sprogbilledet.” As is apparent, the Danish original actually employs the English word “breaks”, in quotation marks, to denote the sense of rupture. In the most general sense, this view is reminiscent of that of the disruptiveness, the enjambemental “break”, referred to by poetico-social critic Scully (cf. note 3).

²⁰ Cf. Dan./Norw./Swed. Bind(n)ingsstil: ‘binding style’, enjambing style.