Home › Glossary › Letter L

Line division

Structure
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

The strategic placement of line endings to shape poetic rhythm, meaning, or visual form on the page.

Detailed Definition
Line division describes the strategic breaking of syntactic units across poetic lines—enjambment—or the alignment of phrase and line—end-stopped lines—to control rhythm, emphasis, and ambiguity; this technique manipulates breath and pause, guiding the reader’s attention and creating tension between grammatical flow and visual structure, thereby enhancing emotional or intellectual impact.
Example
Example in poetry:
Enjambment splitting phrases across lines for tension: “I thought I knew / the shape of grief”; caesura creating mid-line breaks: “Stop—listen—to the wind”; poems using double line breaks to signal thematic shifts; strategic use of white space to isolate words
Additional Notes
Line division controls emphasis—enjambment creates tension and surprise, while end-stopped lines offer clarity and weight; vary both to shape rhythm and meaning.
Also Known As
Enjambment strategy Line-break technique Syntactic segmentation Phrasal division Lineation
Skip to main content