Literary device
Caesura
A pause within a line of verse, usually marked by punctuation or a syntactic break, that interrupts the line's flow without ending it. One of the oldest organising devices in lineated poetry.
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Literary devices
How metaphor, enjambment, radif, and other devices work — guidelines a poet considers, then bends with care.
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Literary device
End-stop
A line whose grammatical sense — and usually its punctuation — closes at the line break. The opposite of enjambment, and the default lineation of much classical and ceremonial English verse.
Literary device
Enjambment
A line that runs past its end into the next, without the syntax pausing where the line breaks. The opposite of the end-stop, and one of the most expressive choices in lineated verse.
Literary device
Volta
The structural turn in a sonnet — the moment where the argument, image, or address shifts. Named for the Italian word for 'turn'; one of the defining devices of the European sonnet tradition.