Greetings from the front lines of Great Books II! Over here, we recently read Statius’ Thebaid, a Roman epic about the battle between brothers Eteocles and Polynices over who will succeed their father Oedipus as king of Thebes. It’s got everything one could want in an epic: giant serpents, foreboding prophecies, meddling gods, and heroically tragic last stands. So many tragic last stands. Indeed, Seven Ways to Die Tragically: A Beginner’s Guide would work fairly well as an alternative title.
It's a fantastic poem; you should read it.
But I digress. Since the Thebaid was the first poetic text we read as a class, we began our discussion with a general introduction to reading poetry and identifying various poetic devices. While we discussed tried and true literary staples like metaphors, similes, and alliteration, we also tackled some devices that are perhaps a bit more obscure—like enjambment. Enjambment refers to a line of poetry that ends abruptly in the middle of a phrase. The phrase then concludes on the subsequent line. Take a look at the opening lines of the Thebaid:
My mind takes Pierian fire. Fraternal strife
Unfolds: unholy hatred, alternating reigns,
The criminality of Thebes. How far,
O goddesses, should I go? . . .
Notice how the first line ends in the middle of a phrase. If I were speaking normally, I wouldn’t pause or take a breath between “fraternal strife” and “unfolds”: I would simply say “fraternal strife unfolds.” In a poem, then, I would expect these three words to be on the same line, but Statius subverts my expectations here. This is an example of enjambment. Compare this first line to the second line, which, though still breaking up a sentence, ends with a complete phrase followed by a comma, which is a natural place to pause or take a breath while speaking. The second line, therefore, does not make use of enjambment.
Because there is no natural place to pause at the end of a line, enjambment hurls the reader directly into the next line whether they like it or not. There is no time to think, no time to pause, no time to consider putting the poem down and reading something else. Enjambment is the poetic equivalent of the intimidating hill that typically marks the beginning of a roller coaster: once you reach the top the momentum flings you forward so enthusiastically that you feel weightless and have no choice but to continue onward.
Statius was very fond of enjambment. Nearly every stanza has multiple instances of the device, which has the effect of launching the reader from one line to the next with an ever-increasing urgency that mirrors the progression of his doomed heroes from Argos to Thebes to Tartarus.
After our class discussion, I found myself realizing how the acceleration of enjambment sometimes mirrors life, especially life in the classroom. While it is true that we often have clear boundaries and transitions between moments—3:35pm marking the end of the school day, Friday marking the end of the school week, finals marking the end of the semester—there are likewise moments that seem to blur into each other with no time to take a breath between one and the next: tackling a hefty Great Books reading during a free period and taking it home to continue in the evening, the task of writing (or grading) essays that stretches from Friday to Tuesday, the timeless haze that seems descend on the semester somewhere between week five and the well-deserved breathing room of Fall Break.
I find myself sometimes feeling overwhelmed by these moments that blur into each other, these chronological enjambments that wash over me without politely pausing to let me take a breath. And yet, recognizing the similarity between these moments and the elegance of poetry makes me reevaluate them. If a poet can use enjambment to create a sense of expectation rather than anxiety, of hastening toward an anticipated culmination rather than drowning beneath relentless waves, perhaps I too can ride the momentum of enjambment moments, taking advantage of the acceleration to launch myself forward into the next moment—and the next, and the next so that I run, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “further up and further in,” ever onward in the adventure God has placed before me.