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A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for "cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins. It may be expressed by a comma ( ,), a Check mark ( ✓), or two lines, either slashed ( //) or upright ( ||). In time value, this break may vary between the slightest perception of silence all the way up to a full Pausa.Spreadbury, Daniel; Eastwood, Michael; Finn, Ben; and Finn, Jonathan (March 2008). "Sibelius 5 Reference", p.150. Edition 5.2. "The comma also indicates a short silence on instruments like the piano, which can't literally breath."
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.
μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ, || Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος ||("Sing the rage, o goddess, || of Achilles, the son of Peleus.")
This line includes a masculine caesura after θεὰ, a natural break that separates the line into two logical parts. Homeric lines more commonly employ feminine caesurae; this preference is observed to an even higher degree among the Alexandrian poets. An example of a feminine caesura is the opening line of the Odyssey:
ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, || πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ ||("Tell me, Muses, of the man || of many wiles, who very much (wandered)")
Occasionally (about 1 line in 100) the caesura comes in the 4th foot only.Maas, P. (1962). Greek Metre (tr. Lloyd-Jones), p. 60.
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)
/ref> 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.
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.)
An example of the use of danda as caesurae in Indian poetry is in the "dohas" or couplet poems of Kabir, 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:
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.
In musical notation, a caesura is marked by double oblique lines, similar to a pair of slash mark . The symbol is popularly called "tram-lines" in the UK and "railroad tracks" or "train tracks" in the US. The symbol is encoded in Unicode as .
The length of a caesura where notated is at the discretion of the musician.
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