In meter, caesura (alternative spellings are cæsura or cesura) is a term to denote an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse. In most cases, caesura is indicated by punctuation marks which cause a pause in speech: a comma, a semicolon, a full stop, a dash, etc. Punctuation, however, is not necessary for a caesura to occur.
There are two types of caesurae: masculine and feminine. A masculine caesura is a pause that follows a stressed syllable; a feminine caesura follows an unstressed syllable. Another distinction is by the position of the caesura in a line. Initial caesura describes a break close to the beginning of a line, medial denotes a pause in the middle and terminal occurs at the very end. Initial and terminal caesura were rare in formal, Romance, and Neoclassical verse, which preferred medial caesura. In scansion, the "double pipe" sign ("||") is used to denote the position of a caesura in a line.
Caesurae feature prominently in Greek and Latin versification, especially in the heroic verse form, dactylic hexameter.
In musical notation, caesura denotes a complete cessation of musical time.
The informal term for caesura amongst UK musicians is 'tram-lines', due to the physical resemblance of the sign to tram (street-car) lines.
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The "double pipes," "train tracks," or "railroad tracks" are not original to any of the texts quoted, but only serve to show the position of the audible pause.
Caesuras were widely used in Greek poetry, for example in the opening line of the Iliad:
This line includes a masculine caesura after θεὰ, a natural break that separates the line into two logical parts. Unlike later writers, Homeric lines more commonly employ the feminine caesura.
Caesuras were widely used in Latin poetry, for example in Virgil's opening line of the Aeneid:
This line displays an obvious 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 an even more obvious caesura:
The caesura was even more important to 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 at will. 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. Consider the opening line of Beowulf:
William Langland's Piers Plowman:
Caesuras can occur in later forms of verse; in these, though, they are usually optional. The so-called ballad meter, or the common meter of the hymn odists, 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 caesuras can be found in this verse form (from the ballad Tom o' Bedlam):
In later and freer verse forms, the caesura is optional. It can, however, be used for rhetorical effect, as in Alexander Pope's line:
CAESURA (Lat. for "cutting," Gr. Toµ7)), in prosody, a rest or pause, usually occurring about the middle of a verse, which is thereby separated into two parts (Kaa, members). In Greek and Latin hexameters the best and most common caesura is the penthemimeral (i.e. after the 5th half-foot): Mivu ' S, I Oe It, I I17)I Xnia I 'Ax I kilos Arma vi I rumque ca I no, Tro i jae qui I primus ab I oris. Another caesura very common in Homer, but rare in Latin verse,, is after the 2nd syllable of the 3rd dactyl: I of I en S' Piero I Oov?ori.
On the other hand, the hephthemimeral caesura (i.e. after the 7th half-foot) is common in Latin, but rare in Greek: Formo I sam reso I nare do Ices Ama I ryllida I silvas.
The "bucolic" caesura, peculiar to Greek (so called because it is. chiefly found in writers like Theocritus) occurs after the 4th dactyl: ivvere, I Mouva, aoI XuTp07rov, I µaXa I,roXAa.
In the pentameter verse of the elegiac distich the caesura is always penthemimeral. In the iambic trimeter (consisting of three dipodia or pairs of feet), both in Greek and Latin, the most usual. caesura is the penthemimeral; next, the hephthemimeral: 'St I va KIM Toii 17raXat I vFa I Supplex I et o I ro reg I na per I Proser I pinae.
Verses iii which neither of these caesuras occurs are considered faulty. On the other hand, secondary or subsidiary caesuras are found in both Greek and Latin; thus, a trithemimeral (after the 3rd half-foot) is combined with the hephthemimeral, which divides the verse into two unequal parts. A caesura is often called masculine when it falls after a long, feminine when it falls after a short syllable.
The best treatise on Greek and Latin metre for general use is L. Muller, Die Metrik der Griechen and Romer (1885); see also the article Verse.
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