CAESURA • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Caesura

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noun

caesura n. (pl. E. caesuras, L. caesurae)

A metrical break in a verse, occurring in the middle of a foot and commonly near the middle of the verse; a sense pause in the middle of a foot. Also, a long syllable on which the caesural accent rests, or which is used as a foot. Note: In the following line the caesura is between study and of. "The prop | er stud | y of | mankind | is man."

A pause or interruption (as in a conversation); as, after an ominous caesura the preacher continued.

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Etymology of 'Caesura'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Caesura" Quotes from Famous Books

... after all the very essence of a poem,—its exact metrical quality. Birch has created an entirely different form of strophe in which all four lines are alike, each containing seven principal accents, with the caesura, following the fourth foot. Lettsom makes the first serious attempt to reproduce the original strophe. It is evident from the introduction to his translation (see p. xxvi) that he had made a careful study of its form, and ...

— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler

... successors down to Surrey, are merely rhythmical, to be read by cadence, and admitting of considerable variety in the number of syllables, though ten may be the more frequent. In the manuscripts of Chaucer, the line is always broken by a caesura in the middle, which is pointed out by a virgule; and this is preserved in the early editions down to that of 1532. They come near, therefore, to the short Saxon line, differing chiefly by the alternate rhyme, which converts ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

Words linked to "Caesura" : interruption, intermission, suspension, prosody, caesural