poem with dashes exclamation points or enjambment

Poem with dashes exclamation points or enjambment how to#

In poetry that uses meter, each caesura is defined as 'masculine' or 'feminine' depending on whether the pause comes after a stressed or unstressed syllable. To be, || or not to be - || that is the question.Īs you can see, from this example, it is possible to have multiple caesurae in a single line of poetry. Here's an example of how the double pipe is used to mark caesura in context:

When analyzing poetry, poets and scholars sometimes mark instances of caesura by using a symbol called a 'double pipe,' which looks like this: ||. The comma after 'To be' is another example of caesura in this line, though the pause is arguably a briefer one. Read the line aloud yourself and you will hear the pause. In this famous line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, the dash in the middle of the line represents a pronounced pause. To be, or not to be - that is the question. The Romans and Greeks, however, wrote their poetry using much more rigid conventions of meter than are used in English verse, and the word caesura has long since come to mean simply a pause in the middle of a line, such as:

Poem with dashes exclamation points or enjambment how to#

Here's how to pronounce caesura: sez- yoo-ra Caesura in DepthĬaesurae have been used in poetry since the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans-though, back then, the term was even more specific and referred to pauses that actually threw off the meter of a line of poetry. A line of poetry can contain multiple caesurae.Either 'caesurae' or 'caesuras' can be used as the plural form of caesura.Some additional key details about caesuras: In the following line from the prologue of Romeo and Juliet, the comma after 'Verona' marks a caesura: 'In fair Verona, where we lay our scene.' It can be placed anywhere after the first word and before the last word of a line.

A caesura doesn't have to be placed in the exact middle of a line of poetry. What is a caesura? Here’s a quick and simple definition:Ī caesura is a pause that occurs within a line of poetry, usually marked by some form of punctuation such as a period, comma, ellipsis, or dash.