A caesura is a literary device that describes a stop or pause in a metrical line, which is typically marked by punctuation or a grammatical structure, such as a clause or phrase. Caesuras are used in poetry for a wide variety of effects.
This includes emphasizing the point being made by the poet or making meaning match with sense. In this article, we look at a few examples of caesuras in poetry.
Examples of caesura
The following is an extract from the poem “The Bounty” by Drek Walcott, which has several examples of the caesura.
1. Walcott, “The Bounty” (1997):
Frost whitening his stubble, he stands in the ford
of a brook like the Baptist lifting his branches to bless
cathedrals and snails, the breaking of this new day,
and the shadows of the beach road near which my mother lies,
with the traffic of insects going to work anyway.
The lizard on the white wall fixed on the hieroglyph
of its stone shadow, the palms’ rustling archery,
the souls and sails of circling gulls rhyme with:
“In la sua volont è nostra pace,”
In His will is our peace. Peace in white harbours,
in marinas whose masts agree, in crescent melons
In this example by Derek Walcott, a caesura occurs in the middle of most of the lines of the poem. These caesuras are defined by conventional pauses and punctuation. For example, “Frost whitening his stubble, he stands in the ford / of a brook like the Baptist lifting his branches to bless.”
The poem “Bounty” is written in the form of a prayer. The regularly occurring caesuras give it the meditative effect that one associates with prayer. The constant drip of images, regular rhyme, and caesura all come together to work toward the greater prayer effect of the poem.
The following example is from Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Voice,” which also has a rather dramatic example of a caesura being used.
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2. Hardy, “The Voice” (1912):
Thus I; faltering forward,
Leaves around me falling,
Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,
And the woman calling.
Thomas Hardy uses a caesura to dramatize his “faltering forward” at being distressed from hearing what sounds like the voice of a beloved woman calling him beyond the grave. He hears her voice in the sound of the wind “oozing” through the trees.
The caesura is created by placing a semicolon directly after “I.” This gives the impression of an emphatic pause. This emphatic pause is meant to emulate the faltering way in which the poet is walking from the distress of hearing the voice of a ghost calling him.
Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, December 18). What Is a Caesura? EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/what-is-a-caesura |
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