Caesura

Definition
Caesura – a pause, which is a rhythmical pause in a poetic line or a sentence
Poets indicate such a pause with a parallel symbol thus: ||

Medial Caesura
I loked on my left half || as þe lady me taughte
And was war of a woman || worþeli ycloþed.
– William Langland “Piers Ploughman”

Initial Caesura
Dead ! || One of them shot by the sea in the east…
What art can a woman be good at? Oh, vain!
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning “Mother and Poet”

Terminal Caesura
No voice says “My mother” again to me. || What !
You think Guido forgot ?
– Elizabeth Barrett Browning “Mother and Poet”

Types of caesura
Feminine Caesura
• Feminine Caesura = occurs after a non -stressed and short syllable in a poetic line
• It is for you we speak, || not for ourselves:
You are abused || and by some putter-on
That will be damn’d for’t; || would I knew the villain,
I would land-damn him. || Be she honour-flaw’d,
I have three daughters; || the eldest is eleven – (Shakespeare “The Winter Tale”)

Types of caesura
Masculine Caesura
Masculine pause occurs after a long or accented syllable in a line
Of reeds and stalk-crickets, || fiddling the dank air,
Lacing his boots with vines, || steering glazed beetles
- Derek Walcott “The Bounty”