Home › Glossary › Letter C

Contre-rejet

French
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 metric phenomenon where the end of a syntactic unit falls at the beginning of the following verse line, creating emphasis through initial placement. The complement of enjambement and rejet.

Detailed Definition
The contre-rejet is the metrical-syntactic phenomenon complementary to the rejet: while the rejet projects a small syntactic element onto the beginning of the next line, the contre-rejet designates precisely that initial element which receives emphasis through its isolated position at the start of a new verse. Together, rejet and contre-rejet describe the two sides of enjambement: the movement of syntax across the line boundary and the element that receives expressive emphasis by being thrust into initial position. French versification theory uses this precise terminology to analyze the interplay between syntactic and metric structure.
Example
Example in poetry:
Hugo's enjambement in "Elle était déchaussée, elle était décoiffée, // Assise, les pieds nus, parmi les joncs penchants" sends the past participle onto the new line via contre-rejet, giving "Assise" isolated initial prominence that emphasizes the seated posture; In Rimbaud's "Le Dormeur du val," the contre-rejet projects key verbs to the beginnings of lines, creating rhythmic lurches that disturb the sonnet's surface pastoral beauty with sudden syntactic jolts; A student learning to identify contre-rejet should look for syntactically important elements, verbs, adjectives, or subjects, appearing at the very start of a line as the result of enjambement from the preceding line; The contre-rejet is always the other side of a rejet: if enjambement throws a small element forward onto a new line (rejet), that element (contre-rejet) receives expressive weight from its initial position in a line that the meter marks as a point of rhythmic arrival; Verlaine uses contre-rejet to create the sense of thought arriving breathlessly at the beginning of a line, as though the speaker cannot quite contain his syntactic units within the prescribed metric boundaries; Analyzing contre-rejet in a poem is excellent practice for understanding how French poets use the tension between syntax and meter as an expressive resource, with the rejected element at line-beginning often carrying the poem's most charged and surprising words.
Additional Notes
Contre-rejet is one of the subtler effects of French versification, requiring careful attention to syntax as well as lineation. Unlike enjambement generally, contre-rejet places the syntactically completing fragment at the start of the next line, often giving disproportionate emphasis to a brief phrase or word. Compare closely with rejet. Students should read aloud to hear how expectation and interruption operate. This device becomes especially expressive in poets who deliberately destabilise classical metrical regularity.
Also Known As
Contre-rejetement
Skip to main content