Overriding

The overlapping is a metric phenomenon that occurs when there is a disagreement between the syntactic unit and the metric unit, that is, when the syntactic unit exceeds the versal pause and spills over into the following verse (what which in French is called rejet), or, when elements of the unit of meaning that constitute the following verse are anticipated at the end of a verse (contre-rejet). In both cases, the unfinished sentence remains "on horseback" between two verses, which gives the verb to ride that metaphorical meaning, from which the name of the phenomenon comes. The French term enjambement, which has also become popular among German and English philologists —although equivalents can be found in their own languages—, comes from a figurative use of the verb enjamber ('cross'), etymologically derived from the noun jambe ('leg'), which establishes a metonymic association with the metric or versal foot. The opposite metrical phenomenon is called a stichomytia.

The effect produced by the jamming is the alteration of "the harmony of the parallelism between the rhythmic, metric and syntactic structures" or, in other words, a "dislocation of the flowing rhythm". According to Alarcos, in the In the poem, two rhythms coexist: the purely linguistic one of syntax, and the rhythm of the verse, made up of a sequence marked by accents of intensity placed in a certain way and delimited by the versal or stanza pause. The enjambment mismatches these two rhythms and tends to make the versal pause shorter, replacing it with the syntactic pause, which in the case of abrupt enjambments breaks the following verse in two, thereby slowing down the reading.

The overlapping can produce various stylistic effects, depending on the text in question and the coincidence or contrast with other elements. Among them are, according to Domínguez Caparrós, “provide the rhythm with a certain variety, since the coincidence of syntactic unity and rhythmic unity ends up producing the sensation of monotony; possibility of inserting the flow of the spoken language in the verse, since the limits of the phrase are extended by not imposing limitations on the rhythmic pause; the parts of the group divided by the pause acquire expressive relevance, because by being isolated they are underlined".

Helena Beristáin, for her part, lists the following meaning effects: «Thus, it can support ambiguity; it can stimulate the speed of reading to underline an impression of impetuosity that harmonizes with the passion expressed; it can contrast (producing surprise) with the attachment to the regularity with which other aspects of the form chosen by the writer are presented. The enjambment "partially denies meter" and rhythm, and signifies a return to prose, since it suppresses to a certain extent the form that is characteristic of verse".

Regarding the latter, we can also allude to the stylistic uses that have been made of this phenomenon in the so-called free verse: «In some cases the enjambment forces the meta-analysis of the reading, either by undoing a cliché ( Shoulder to shoulder, until we see a people on their feet / in peace, raising a dawn, Otero), either by making us link to the rejet an element that, in the first instance, we had joined to a word from the first verse (Sunday, flower of light, almost incredible / day, Ángel González)».

Typology of thrusts

In addition to the aforementioned French typology of enjambement, which distinguishes between rejet and contrarejet, it has traditionally been considered, in accordance with the name proposed by Dámaso Alonso, that there are two types of overlapping depending on the length of the verse:

• abrupt encabalgment: when the sense extends from one verse to another, but suddenly breaks into the second.

Death is a supposition

if compared
with this walking tempest

behind a vague shadow.

Nicolas Guillén, Death is a supposition... (1948)

• Soft packaging: when the prolonged sense, also from one verse to another, continues to flow in the second to the end of the verse.

With so much meekness the crystalline
Tajo on that side walked

Garcilaso de la Vega, III (1543)

Another possible typology is the one proposed by Antonio Quilis, who takes into account the nature of the elements split by the overlapping and distinguishes three types:

• Lexicon ladder: when a word is divided, which is a unity of meaning, of meaning, strictly unique.

And while miserable...

mind are the others hugging

with insacïable thirst

Fray Luis de León, Oda to retired life (ca. 1580)

• Syrematic package: when a syrem is cast, that is, an inseparable group of words that the standard of the tongue does not allow to separate with a rest, such as Sust + Adj, Sust + Determinative complement, Adv + V, Adj or Adv; atonous pronoun, preposition, conjunction, article + the following element; composite times of verbs and verbal periphery; words that are built with preposition.

A breeze and cold afternoon

winter. Colleges
They study. Monotony

of rain in the crystals.

Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

• Oral encabalgment: when the antecedent and the pronoun of a specific adjective prayer are separated, finding the antecedent of adjective prayer in the encabalgant verse, immediately before the versa, and the relative in the encabalgado verse, after the pause.

Discolored was like pink
that has been out of it taken

Garcilaso de la Vega

Those cases in which the metric pause separates the subject and the verb, or the verb and the direct object, would be left out of this typology. According to Quilis, these would not create an anomalous pause in the internal structure of the language and would therefore be "susceptible to easy excision" and, therefore, would not receive the name of enjambment. Kurt Spang proposes the denomination of metric linkage to designate this "cohesion between parts of the sentence that do not come to the close fusion of the elements of a word and of a sirreme, but that are still noticeable as more linked than others".

Finally, another typology of enjambments, also proposed by Quilis, would be one that takes into account the metric pause to which the syntactic unit does not adjust, and that would distinguish between:

• Versatile lace: the one that matches the final pause of the verse.
• Medium slippery: the one that coincides with the intermediate pause of the composite verse, the cessure; that is, the one that exceeds the limits of the first hemistiquium and turns into the next.

The strophic overlapping could be added to this last typology, proposed by Nogales-Baena, which would coincide with the strophic pause and can often be found between the quartets and triplets that make up a sonnet:

But if there was anything so daring,

that, despite the danger, Apollo himself
I wish to rule with boldness

hand, the fast car in light bathed
I did everything, and I wouldn't take it alone.

state, it must be all life.

Sr. Juana Inés de la Cruz