One of the most striking features in a poem is the arrangement in verses. These lines can be interrupted at very different points. Hook style is a way to make this line break. In a stanza, the sentences and shots coincide, if one speaks of a line style, they do not do that, from a hook style.
Originally, the term refers to a stylistic means in the Germanic staff reflexion. In this case, a sense unit ends in the line of the long line, and is completed only in the following line of the line. The verse thus receives a sentence or sense of meaning, “beyond” the end of the verse.
The great cargo of the summer is loaded,
the sun ship in the harbor is ready,
when behind you the gull falls and cries.
The great cargo of the summer is loaded.
These verses are from the poem The great cargo of Ingeborg Bachmann. If we now read these verses in pieces, we see that each verse also forms a sentence and a sense-section. In principle, each line could stand alone and would be accessible to the reader.
This means that we have to do with the row style, since the verses are not “hacked”, but the sentences and dispatches coincide. This can be seen very nicely by the fact that all lines end with a punctuation mark (a conjunction would also go).
Sometimes it does
the sky
shows his secret
in the mirror of the earth
The four verses were taken from Ulla Hahn’s work Beautiful Landscape, which deals with the destruction of the earth by man. These lines do not form independent sentences and also no real sense sections. Rather, we are dealing with a sentence that goes over several verses.
This means that the style of the hook is quite clear. The verses thus merge into one another, and the verse and the end of the poem do not fall together directly in the poem.
Clarification of the hook in the text
Clarification of the hook style by means of an example
In the picture the possible sentences of the poem were connected with each other by means of colors. Through this kind of visualization, the hook shape should come to mind and why the lyrical style figure bears this name and how the elements appear “hammed”.
Hook style and row style
A common mistake is to speak immediately of a hook style or even line style if we can make the described features unique in a poem.
If we want to speak of a style and to push a text into one or the other, the conspicuousness must be drawn by many, perhaps even all verses, of the respective text. This means that we should describe a text, which is characterized by a few line breaks, with the corresponding stylistic means (→ Enjambement) and not as a continuous hook style.
Effect and function of the hook style
The known reading pattern in a poem is altered by the use of line breaks. The reader emphasizes it differently and “stumbles” about individual building blocks.
This circumstance can also sometimes alter the presentation of a work, since we do not fall into the usual pattern (singsang) of the verses and present the text “liquid”.
Note: It should be obvious that it is not a problem to speak of the hook style, if we are not dealing with the Germanic rod seal. The term can be used when a lyric text is characterized by numerous enjambements (line breaks).