Poetry & verse

Caesura

A deliberate pause or break within a line of poetry.

A caesura interrupts a line partway through, often marked by punctuation, creating a beat of silence in the middle of the verse. Writers use it to control pacing, mimic natural speech, or split a line into contrasting halves. In older verse it falls at a fixed point; in modern poetry it moves freely for effect.

Example

Each line pauses in the middle, splitting it into two balanced parts, a structural caesura that gives the old poem its steady, hammering rhythm.

Beowulf · Anonymous (Old English poet)

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