Caesura in Depth In this famous line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the dash in the middle of the line represents a pronounced pause. Read the line aloud yourself and you will hear the pause. The comma after "To be" is another example of caesura in this line, though the pause is arguably a briefer one.
- Is a comma a caesura?
- What is a caesura in literature?
- How do you use caesura in a sentence?
- What is a type of caesura?
Is a comma a caesura?
Caesura is a fancy word for a not-so-awkward pause that occurs in the middle of a line of verse in poetry. You can use this term if you want to sound smart, but we think "pause" is just fine. You can create pauses in a lot of ways, but the most obvious is to use punctuation like a period, comma, or semicolon.
What is a caesura in literature?
A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause.
How do you use caesura in a sentence?
caesura in a sentence
- The poet uses enjambment and caesura to have the desired structure.
- Emily also uses caesura in the first line in stanza four.
- There is usually a caesura after the ictus of the third foot.
- His verses are mostly octosyllables with, generally, a median caesura.
What is a type of caesura?
In modern poetry, the definition of “caesura” is the natural end to a poetic phrase, especially when the phrase ends in the middle of a line of poetry. There are two types of caesura: A masculine caesura follows a stressed or accented syllable while a feminine caesura follows an unstressed syllable.