A caesura is a pause in poetry or music that occurs naturally in rhythm or speech. There are two types: feminine and masculine. In poetry, it breaks a metrical foot into two parts and is identified by double pipes. In music, it is denoted by a symbol of five horizontal parallel lines with a double diagonal sign.
A caesura is a pause that occurs in musical or poetic composition. A caesural pause in a line of poetry is dictated by the normal rhythm of the speech, rather than by the metre. Also, a pause in conversation or a pause in music can be called a caesura. The etymology of the word caesura has Indo-European roots. Caesura comes from the Latin word meaning “cut”.
Sometimes, a caesura occurs in conjunction with punctuation, but is usually present as a natural break in rhythm, speech, or melody rather than intentional by the author, speaker, or songwriter.
In poetry, there are two types of caesural breaks: feminine and masculine. The feminine caesura is a pause that occurs after a short, or unstressed, syllable in a verse. The masculine caesural pause is characterized by a pause that occurs after a long or stressed syllable. In prosody, or verse study, a caesura breaks a metrical foot, or a group of stressed or unstressed syllables used as a unit of poetic metre, into two irregular parts.
In the scanning, or the analysis of the meter and the accent in poetry through the symbols, two parallel vertical lines, called double pipes, identify a caesural pause.
Here is an example of caesural breaks as seen in William Butler Yeats’ poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” The vertical and parallel lines are scanning tools and are not part of the author’s original poem.
I will get up and go now, || forever night and day
I hear the lapping of the lake water || with low sounds on the shore…
The caesura of the first verse coincides with the author’s punctuated pause. However, the natural caesural pause in the second line breaks the foot into separate audible parts without any punctuation.
In music, a symbol of five horizontal parallel lines with a double diagonal sign across the upper lines denotes a pause or complete silence in the melody.
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