Are you considering, Mr. Cory, whether the caesura be intended by the poet to indicate a pause for daydreaming?
Lines twenty-one and twenty-two, and pray note that you are not to stress the caesura in line twenty-two, seeing there is no break in the thought.
This becomes apparent when we investigate the principle that serves as the foundation to these rules; in other words, when we exhibit the rationale, or doctrine, of the caesura in question.
No remark has been made by critics upon lines constructed in this manner, since thecaesura is a penthimimer, and consequently their rules are undisturbed.
Consequently, we must allow the bar denoting the caesura to shift its position to a later place in the line, as in A 3; though we may still use Dr.
Moreover, when they did use it, inasmuch as the original value of the caesura was little known, they inserted such a redundant syllable in other positions; in order to avoid monotony.
We have noted, however, that Chaucer varied from his French models in making the place of the caesura moveable; and the result was to bring the two portions of each line into closer relationship.
The recurrence of the feminine caesura measures fairly the relative elasticity of the versifiers.
Orm’s verse is monotonously regular; every line has its fifteen syllables exactly counted out and ends in x́ x; the caesura comes after the eighth syllable; the rhythm is iambic without substitution.
The caesurais handled with greater freedom than in the Story of Rimini.
One little girl, in the first six minutes of her work, marked the caesura of seventy-six ten-syllable lines without making a mistake.
While the rhythmic accents were being studied, we found that the discovery of the caesura (interior pause) formed an interesting recreative diversion.
In Greek and Latin hexameters the best and most common caesura is the penthemimeral (i.
A caesura is often called masculine when it falls after a long, feminine when it falls after a short syllable.
On this last consideration I have shunned the caesura as much as possibly I could; for wherever that is used, it gives a roughness to the verse, of which we can have little need in a language which is overstocked with consonants.
You may please also to observe that there is not, to the best of my remembrance, one vowel gaping on another for want of a caesurain this whole poem.
The most usual places for the caesura are at the middle of the third, or the middle of the fourth foot: the former is known as the penthemimeral and the latter as hepthemimeral caesura.
Varied cadences and varied caesura are essential to this form of verse, otherwise the monotony is wearying to the ear.
Caesuras are named according to their position in the verse; thus a caesura after the third half-foot (i.
The word caesura is often loosely used to include both caesura proper and diaeresis.
The Roman writers show a strong preference for masculine principal caesuras, and in general their treatment of the caesura is more strict than that of the Greek poets.
If the secondary trithemimeral caesura is lacking, the penthemimeral is usually accompanied by a feminine caesurain the second foot.
There is regularly a diaeresis between the two series, and a caesura after the thesis of the first dactyl.
If there is not such a diaeresis, there is generally a caesura after the arsis of the fifth foot.
There is regularly a diaeresis after the first colon, and a caesura after the third thesis.
Resolution is not allowed before the caesura or the end of the verse.
A caesura which comes immediately after the thesis of a foot is called masculine; one which falls in the middle of the arsis (i.
The caesura is generally the penthemimeral (2544).
A monosyllable rarely stands before the principal caesura or at the end of the verse.
This caesura is called Feminine, as opposed to the caesura after a long syllable, which is called Masculine (as under a and b) d) A pause sometimes occurs at the end of the fourth foot.
The Caesura usually occurs in the third foot; less frequently in the fourth.
This variable position of thecaesura is, however, not found in the earliest specimens of this metre presented to us in the two poems in the Harl.
For there must be a caesurain every four-beat verse, and it must always be found in one definite place, viz.
Probably the strict iambic cadence and the fixed position of the caesuracaused this metre to appear especially adapted for cultured poetry, at a time when rising and falling rhythms were first sharply distinguished.
The Middle English Alexandrine is a six-foot iambic line with a caesura after the third foot.
The caesura is variable; masculine in line 1; trisyllabic after the second arsis in line 2; a double caesura occurs in line 3, viz.
For this reason it also occurs more frequently than the other kinds of caesura in the Modern English four-beat line.
But in fact substantive and epithet are constantly found linked at the caesura of the pentameter: the strong break in the metre at that point no doubt made the construction more readily acceptable there than in other positions.
The continual succession of these lines without so much as an occasional change of caesura to diversify the rhythm is at times almost intolerable.
Its pauses come with monotonous regularity at the end of the line, diversified only by an occasional break at the caesura in the third foot.
In a few scattered instances we find strophes that rhyme throughout in the caesura as well as at the end of lines;[10] occasionally the first and second lines, or still less frequently the third and fourth, alone have caesural rhyme.
Rhyming of the caesuramay be regarded as accidental in most cases, but it is reproduced as exactly as possible in this translation.
Each line is divided by a clearly marked caesura into two halves; each half of the first three lines and the first half of the fourth line has three accented syllables, the second half of the fourth line has four accented syllables.
The first ten lines, conveying moral saws or maxims, furnish almost a complete example of the closed couplet system, and not only of that, but of the division of single lines by a pause or caesura after the second or third stress.
Other, slighter pauses fall quite variably where they will, and there is no regular breathing pause or caesura dividing the line after the second or third stress.
Columns were made in spiral or screw form; the variety of details was oppressive; no rest, no caesura distinguished their ornamentation.
The alternation may be interrupted by a caesura (a mark or sign of rest).
Pope has not but one invariablecaesura to his verse.
