User:Phil wink/sandbox4

Notes on "caesura" etc.

Terms like "caesura", "diaeresis", "pause", "break", "hold", and "rest" are labels for a variety of — sometimes overlapping, sometimes contradictory — metrical and intonational features within verse. Nomenclature — especially in English criticism — can be fluid: a single term (e.g. "caesura") designates quite different features in different sources; conversely, they may use a variety of terms for the same phenomenon; or worst of all, sometimes terms simply remain ill-defined.

Suspensory versus compensatory

Probably the most significant — and contentious — distinction to be made is whether the feature occurs between metrical positions, or takes the place of a metrical position. George R. Stewart offers the metaphor of a conductor accompanying a singer: "Sometimes as the [singer] pauses to breathe or to emphasize some climax of the song, the baton also remains poised and still. At other times occur moments of complete silence during which the baton continues to move." This distinction is made:

• Suspensory pause: "a pause which interrupts the rhythm, but does not form a part of it; it suspends the counting of time for an indefinite period. (George's baton is still.)

One Two (pause) Three Four

• Compensatory pause: "the pause or 'rest' that occurs between two fully stressed syllables, or a metrical division, helping to make up the time of a monosyllabic foot and compensate for the apparent loss of a syllable from the theoretic scheme." (George's baton keeps moving.)

One Two (pause) Four

Extreme positions are possible. Joshua Steele did not conceive of suspensory pauses: pauses large and small all become rests with explicit durations in his musical scansion, potentially expanding an iambic pentameter line to 8 bars (this view is no longer prevalent). Conversely, many metrists explicitly deny the existence of compensatory pauses, seeing all forms of pause as elements of verse delivery, not metrical structure.

Finer distinctions

The various features that fall under these rubrics can best be classified by the relationship of the feature to the meter:

Meter-defined

Junctures that are explicitly required by or constrained by the meter.

1. "Classical" caesura: In Greek and Latin verse, a caesura is a word-juncture that occurs within a metron (that is, usually, within a foot). A word-juncture occurring between metra is a diaeresis. The converse — a position at which a word-end may not occur — is called a "bridge" (see e.g. Porson's Law).

2. "Modern" caesura: In many modern languages, a caesura is a word-juncture (usually stronger?) separating 2 hemistichs in a line of verse... thus essentially equivalent to a fixed Classical diaeresis.

• French césure
• Old English caesura
• Modern English fourteener

Meter-conditioning

Junctures that allow, ease, or justify a metrical variation.

3. "Epic" caesura:

4. Phonological break allowing a smooth mid-line inversion:

Compensatory

Rests, pauses, or holds that fill positions normally filled by audible syllables in a fully-realized line.

5. Virtual beat: "A beat that is not realized in language, but experienced by the reader..."

6. Virtual offbeat: "An offbeat that is not realized in language, but experienced by the reader."

Grammatical

Junctures that occur within a line, often providing rhythmic variety, but having no effect on the metrical structure.

7. Any noticeable juncture (usually such that at least a comma could possibly be present, whether or not any punctuation actually appears) within a line of verse, which serves none of these functions.

References

• Attridge, Derek (1995), Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-42369-4
• Brogan, T.V.F. (1993), "Caesura", in Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T.V.F. (eds.), The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, New York: MJF Books, p. 158-60, ISBN 1-56731-152-0
• Cable, Thomas (1993), "Pause", in Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T.V.F. (eds.), The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, New York: MJF Books, p. 891, ISBN 1-56731-152-0
• Halporn, James W.; Ostwald, Martin; Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. (1980), The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry (Revised ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., ISBN 0-87220-243-7
• Smith, Egerton (1923), The Principles of English Metre, London: Oxford University Press (reprint Westport, CT: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1970. SBN: 8371-4340-3)
• Stewart, George R. Stewart (1930), The Technique of English Verse, Holt, Rinehart and Winston (reprint Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1966.)