A line is a unit of writing into which a poem or play is divided: literally, a single row of text.
[3] In Western literary traditions, use of line is arguably the principal feature which distinguishes poetry from prose.
In such writing, simple visual appearance on a page (or any other written layout) remains sufficient to determine poetic line, and this sometimes leads to the suggestion that the work in question is no longer a poem but "chopped up prose".
Line breaks may occur mid-clause, creating enjambment, a term that literally means 'to straddle'.
Distinct forms of line, as defined in various verse traditions, are usually categorised according to different rhythmical, aural or visual patterns and metrical length appropriate to the language in question.
When verse is quoted within sentences in prose articles or critical essays, line breaks can be indicated by the forward slash (/); for example: "What in me is dark,/ Illumine, what is low raise and support,/ That to the height of this great argument/ I may assert eternal Providence,/ And justify the ways of God to men."
At the same time, the line break subverts 'mustn't': the forbidding of a certain activity—in the poem's context, the moral control the old try to enforce upon the young—only serves to make that activity more enticing.
This meaning is encountered by the reader before it being modified by the text after the line break, which clarifies that, instead of "I, as a person, as a mind, am 'absolute,'" it 'really' means: "I am absolutely sure it was Cloten": I am absolute; 'Twas very Cloten.In every type of literature there is a metrical pattern that can be described as "basic" or even "national"[dubious – discuss].
Classical Sanskrit poetry, such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, was most famously composed using the 32-syllable verse, derived from the Vedic anuṣṭubh metre called shloka.
For example, the feeling may be jagged or startling versus soothing and natural, which can be used to reinforce or contrast the ideas in the poem.
Enjambment is a line break in the middle of a sentence, phrase or clause, or one that offers internal (sub)text or rhythmically jars for added emphasis.
Alternation between enjambment and end-stopped lines is characteristic of some complex and well composed poetry, such as in Milton's Paradise Lost.