In classical Greek and Latin poetry a caesura is the juncture where one word ends and the following word begins within a
foot. In contrast, a word juncture at the end of a foot is called a
diaeresis. Some caesurae are expected and represent a point of articulation between two phrases or clauses. All other caesurae are only potentially places of articulation. The opposite of an obligatory caesura is a bridge where word juncture is not permitted. In modern European poetry, a caesura is defined as a natural phrase end, especially when occurring in the middle of a line. A follows a
stressed syllable while a follows an unstressed syllable. A caesura is also described by its position in a line of poetry: a caesura close to the beginning of a line is called an
initial caesura, one in the middle of a line is
medial, and one near the end of a line is
terminal. Initial and terminal caesurae are rare in formal,
Romance, and
Neoclassical verse, which prefer medial caesurae.
Mark In verse
scansion, the modern
caesura mark is a double
vertical bar ⟨⟩ or ⟨\|⟩, a variant of the single-bar ''
("twig") used as a caesura mark in medieval manuscripts. The same mark separately developed as the virgule, the single slash used to mark line breaks in poetry. An example of a feminine caesura is the opening line of the Odyssey'': || || ("Tell me,
Muse, of the man || of many wiles, who very much (wandered)") Occasionally (about 1 line in 100) the caesura comes in the 4th foot only.
Latin Caesurae were widely used in
Latin poetry, for example, in the opening line of
Virgil's
Aeneid: Arma virumque cano || Troiae qui primus ab oris (Of arms and the man, I sing. || Who first from the shores of Troy...) This line uses caesura in the medial position. In dactylic hexameter, a caesura occurs any time the ending of a word does not coincide with the beginning or the end of a metrical foot; in modern
prosody, however, it is only called one when the ending also coincides with an audible pause in the line. The ancient
elegiac couplet form of the Greeks and Romans contained a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of
pentameter. The pentameter often displayed a clearer caesura, as in this example from
Propertius: Cynthia prima fuit; || Cynthia finis erit. (Cynthia was the first; Cynthia will be the last)
Old English In
Old English, the caesura has come to represent a pronounced pause in order to emphasize lines in Old English poetry that would otherwise be considered to be a droning, monotonous line. This makes the caesura arguably more important to the
Old English verse than it was to Latin or Greek poetry. In Latin or Greek poetry, the caesura could be suppressed for effect in any line. In the
alliterative verse that is shared by most of the oldest
Germanic languages, the caesura is an ever-present and necessary part of the verse form itself. The opening line of
Beowulf reads: Hwæt! We Gardena || in gear-dagum, þeodcyninga, || þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas || ellen fremedon. The basic form is
accentual verse, with four stresses per line separated by a caesura. Old English poetry added alliteration and other devices to this basic pattern.
Middle English William Langland's
Piers Ploughman: I loked on my left half || as þe lady me taughte And was war of a woman || worþeli ycloþed. (I looked on my left half / as the lady me taught) (and was aware of a woman / worthily clothed.)
South and Southeast Asia In the
Brahmic scripts of
South and
Southeast Asia (e.g.
Devanagari), a punctuation mark called the
danda is used to mark subdivisions in text, with single and double variants variously marking phrases, sentences, semi-verses, verses, or larger sections. An example of the use of danda as caesurae in
Indian poetry is in the "dohas" or couplet poems of
Sant Kabir Das, a 15th-century poet who was central to the
Bhakti movement in
Hinduism. Kabir employs the danda to mark semi-verse and verse, as in the following couplet:
Polish Caesura is very important in Polish syllabic verse (as in
French alexandrine). Every line longer than eight syllables is divided into two half-lines. Lines composed of the same number of syllables with division in different place are considered to be completely different metrical patterns. For example, Polish alexandrine (13) is almost always divided 7+6. It has been very common in Polish poetry for last five centuries. But the metre 13(8+5) occurs only rarely and 13(6+7) can be hardly found. In Polish
accentual-syllabic verse caesura is not so important but iambic tetrametre (very popular today) is usually 9(5+4). Caesura in Polish syllabic verse is almost always feminine, while in accentual-syllabic (especially iambic) verse it is often masculine: sSsSsSsS//sSsSsSsSs. There are also metrical patterns with two or three caesuras, for example 18[9(5+4)+9(5+4)].
Other examples Caesurae can occur in later forms of verse, where they are usually optional. The so-called
ballad meter, or the
common meter of the hymnodists (see also
hymn), is usually thought of as a line of
iambic tetrameter followed by a line of
trimeter, but it can also be considered a line of
heptameter with a fixed caesura at the fourth foot. Considering the break as a caesura in these verse forms, rather than a beginning of a new line, explains how sometimes multiple caesurae can be found in this verse form (from the
ballad,
Tom o' Bedlam): From the hag and hungry goblin || that into rags would rend ye, And the spirits that stand || by the naked man || in the Book of Moons, defend ye! In later and freer verse forms, the caesura is optional. It can, however, be used for rhetorical effect, as in
Alexander Pope's line: To err is human; || to forgive, divine. == Music ==