Caesura
In meter, a
caesura (/siːˈʒjʊərə/ or /sɪˈʒʊrə/ (Latin:
caedere); alternative spellings are
cæsura and
cesura) is a complete pause in a line of poetry or in a musical composition. The plural form of
caesura is
caesurae. In poetry, a
masculine caesura follows a stressed syllable while a
feminine caesura follows an unstressed syllable. A caesura is also described by its position in a line of poetry. A caesura close to the beginning of a line is called an
initial caesura, one in the middle of a line is
medial, and one near the end of a line is
terminal. Initial and terminal caesurae were rare in formal, Romance, and Neoclassical verse, which preferred medial caesurae. In scansion, poetry written with signs to indicate the length and stress of syllables, the "double pipe" sign (" ") is used to denote the position of a caesura. In musical notation, a caesura denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted. Similar to a silent fermata, caesurae are located between notes or measures (before or over bar lines), rather than on notes or rests (as with a fermata).