AP® English Literature and Composition · Unit 2
3.C End-Stopped Lines and Enjambment (STR-1.AC)
An end-stopped line closes its thought at the line break, like a sentence ending. An enjambed line runs its sentence past the break, so the line means one thing alone and something else once you read on.
A line of poetry is a unit the poet chose, not an accident of margin width. When the grammar and the line end together, the line is end-stopped: a period, comma, or sense-pause lands right where the line breaks, and the thought seals shut before the next line opens. When the sentence keeps going past the break, with no punctuation and no pause, the line is enjambed. You fall forward into the next line to finish the thought, and that falling is physical: your eye and your breath carry the sentence's momentum over the edge.
Enjambment works because the line break forces a tiny pause even when the grammar doesn't want one. That pause lets the last word of the broken line mean something on its own, before the next line arrives and revises it. 'We real cool. We / Left school.' gives you 'We' hanging alone at the break, almost its own claim of identity and defiance, before 'Left school' turns it into the subject of a sentence about dropping out. Both readings survive. End-stopping denies you that double take: the thought closes, and you move to the next one clean.
These two choices set the poem's pace. A run of end-stopped lines reads like a list of separate verdicts, each one flat and closed, which is why they can sit side by side without seeming to argue. A poem that enjambs every line refuses to let you rest, so the syntax itself mimics whatever the content is doing, like water taking everything in its path. Neither choice is about running out of room on the page; both are decisions about where meaning should pause and where it should keep moving, and they connect directly to how a poem's argument turns from line to line.
Key terms
- end-stopped line
- A line whose grammar and punctuation close its thought at the line break.
- enjambment
- A line break that falls in the middle of a sentence or clause, so the sense carries over to the next line.
- line break
- The point where a line of poetry ends, chosen by the poet rather than forced by margins.
- syntax
- The order and structure of words and clauses in a sentence, which a poem can stretch across or seal within lines.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow does enjambment let a line mean one thing alone and another once you read on?
- How it worksHow does an end-stopped line close a thought before the next one starts?
- Worked exampleShow me how 'We real cool. We / Left school.' hangs the word We out over the break.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't enjambment just a poet running out of room on the line?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a poem's pace when every single line runs over?
Check yourself
End of topic.