Home › Glossary › Letter B

Broken four-line stanza

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A quatrain whose syntax, rhythm, or visual layout is intentionally disrupted or fragmented to convey instability, rupture, or emotional disarray.

Detailed Definition
A broken four-line stanza is a quatrain whose syntactic, rhythmic, or visual structure is intentionally fractured—through enjambment, omission, or typographical disruption—to convey instability, trauma, or modern fragmentation, common in 20th-century experimental poetry.
Example
Example in poetry:
A stanza where four lines are interrupted or fragmented unusually; Gerard Manley Hopkins occasional broken quatrains; Modern poetry using four-line stanzas with abrupt enjambments; A quatrain with one line broken into two shorter lines disrupting flow
Additional Notes
Broken four-line stanza: A quatrain that is fragmented either structurally (e.g., incomplete lines, irregular rhyme/meter) or thematically/syntactically (fragmentary four-liner, 7203).
Also Known As
Dismembered quatrain Fragmented four-liner Split quatrain Dissected tetrastich Deconstructive quatrain
Skip to main content