caesura

A caesura is a pause or break within a line of verse, usually marked by punctuation or by a natural pause in speech. The term comes from the Latin caedere, to cut.

In Old English and other Germanic alliterative verse, the caesura was a defining structural feature: each line was divided into two half-lines separated by a strong medial pause. In classical meter, the caesura falls at a specific position within the metrical foot and is classified as masculine (after a stressed syllable) or feminine (after an unstressed syllable).

In modern poetry, the caesura is used more freely. A period, dash, ellipsis, or even a conspicuous space in the middle of a line creates a pause that can shift emphasis, create contrast between the two halves of a line, or introduce a moment of silence into the poem’s rhythm.

Related terms

• line break — the pause at the end of a line, in contrast to the pause within
• enjambment — continuation across a break, the opposite impulse to the caesura’s cut
• meter — the rhythmic framework within which the caesura operates
• prosody — the study of verse sound and rhythm