The following explanation of Pope's use of caesura is from "Poetry: A Critical and Historical Introduction" by I. Ribner and H. Morris (1961).
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We must also note Pope's skillful placing of the caesura, the major break in each of the lines. [...] Note the following:
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But hark! || the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape || the marble hall:
The rich buffet || well-coloured serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew || to wash your face.
Is this dinner? || this a genial room?
No, 'tis a temple, || and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice, || performed in state,
You drink by measure, || and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, || you'd swear
Sancho's dread doctor || and his wand were there.
—Moral Essay Four: Of the Use of Riches, Alexander Pope.
The first four lines show a clever variation, the caesura being placed after the second syllable of the first line, after the sixth syllable of the second line, after the fourth syllable of the third line, and again after the sixth syllable of the fourth line. Then for three of the four lines containing the strongest satiric impact of the passage we have caesura placed each time after the fifth syllable. This is followed by the variety of a line with a caesura again, as a kind of echo of the preceding lines. It is by this adroit use of the caesura that Pope keeps his closed heroic couplets from the monotonous sing-song to which they might easily fall in the hands of a lesser poet.
Although it makes sense to place one after the poet's commas and question marks, I am not sure why—for example—they identify a caesura after the sixth syllable of the second line "scrape". Why not after the fifth "footsteps"?
e.g. A hundred footsteps || scrape the marble hall
The book's glossary defines caesura as "a break in rhythmical flow of a line of verse, coming usually from a sense pause and also created by means of punctuation. Usually the caesura occurs in the middle of the line".
This last "middle of the line" definition is especially confusing in view of both the above non-medial placement of the caesura as well as their insistence on Pope's skillful placement of the caesura in this poem. I mean, if the caesura is usually determined by middleness, there is little room for choice of placement, which leaves "sense pause". Is a caesura, then, always either placed after the verb phrase before the object (line 2); or after the subject and before the predicate (line 4) unless otherwise determined by punctuation or mediality?
What's the goddam rule here?
(Thanks)
though I know not Pope (not having been in the woods recently), aren't they saying that Pope used the caesura in a fairly unique way? he chose where the pauses would come, not based upon any particular rule, but where he felt he wanted them to be?
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It is by this adroit use of the caesura that Pope keeps his closed heroic couplets from the monotonous sing-song to which they might easily fall in the hands of a lesser poet.
But the editors inserted the "||" marks to show where Pope meant the caesura to go. What I don't understand is, how did the editors know; how did they decide where Pope meant for there to be a pause? In some of the lines given it's obvious, but in others doesn't it seem an open question where the pause should be? No?
Here. I've removed the caesura marks from the lines which I think don't have an obvious place for pause.
But hark! || the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall: [?]
The rich buffet well-coloured serpents grace, [?]
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face. [?]
Is this dinner? || this a genial room?
No, 'tis a temple, || and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice, || performed in state,
You drink by measure, || and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, || you'd swear
Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there. [?]
Try to read the non-punctuated parts as mushed together as you can then as clearly as you can. Find the differences between those two renditions and you'll find where most of the other caesurae need to go.
There is not a caesura in "footsteps scrape" because the two sssss's slide together - there is no stoppage of breath or major rearrangement of mouthparts. "scrape the" is a pretty obvious one, your mouth has to close completely on the p and reform to make the th. It's hard to say pth without putting in a transition of some sort(p||th or puh-th).
On "buffet well", I'm wondering if Pope pronounced the T there - if he did it's an obvious break. "buffay well" I'm not so sure about.
"doctor and" in the last line is a more subtle one. In the clearly spoken version, I make a sort of soft glottal stop there.
I like your hypothesis etaoin, because it makes the most sense.
As for the milum, read it and weep, my friend:
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goddamn (also goddam or goddamned) adjective, adverb, & noun informal used for emphasis, esp. to express anger or frustration : [as adj. ] we're sick of this goddamn weather | [as n. ] I don't give a goddamn what you do!
ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: abbreviation of God damn (me).
—Oxford English Dictionary, 2005
This is what irked me; not being corrected, but being incorrectly corrected. I mean, how does this chap's intellectual haughtiness sustain itself without a solid underwriting argument? By a monstrous, epigonic vanity. Surely any reasonable person would at least attempt to confirm their suspicion that someone else has made a mistake before correcting them. But who is this man, who jumps the gun to play school-master, before realising the joke is on him? That’s what you call an ego writing cheques it can’t cash.
Yup. He's mostly harmless, as long as you take the stuffing out of him as soon as possible
Too much and you'll find yourself nodding in front of the TV.
Well, Old Timers, do you want me to ask
Misses Jackie - the closest thing we have to a moderator - if it is Ok to pepper this fine forum with goddamns spelled "goddam"?
The new timer, Hydra, needs to know.
My dictionary terms the F-word "vulgar slang" while "goddam/goddamn" is referred to innocuously as "informal". But if it makes you happy, themilum, I won't use it, in any of its three equally legitimate orthographical forms. Case closed.
Now Hydra, don't you go closing the case until I say "thank you".
You know what, Hydra? I, myself, think that you are a spirited addition to this language board. Welcome to the monkey house. Here, they don't need any steekin' rules; except one - an unspoken rule - and strangely, this orphic rule is not known by anyone in particular and it keeps changing from time to time.
So welcome, Hydra. I hope to chat with you from time to time.
And if one night, O'Saki, the great orb of the rising moon looks down into this empty garden and sees me not, then Hydra, remember themilum, and set down an empty glass where once I sat.
In other words...I believe that my time ain't long.
Soon, I figure, I'll be kicked off this board.
Go figure.
Now, Milo, you've been here over four years and no one has kicked you off yet...
Yeahbut, Consuelo (you good looking Caribbean chick), for the last four years I have been deferential because I hadn't written a book.
Yeah, I still haven't. But the bird of time is on the wing and I've but a short way to go.
My Saki.
Now, Milo. If we kicked you out we wouldn't have you to kick around.
Just another stupid opinion but pompous Aramis finds it much nicer when one is compelled to swear on a public board to use classic euphemistic text, e.g., "&%$#@*}!"
, or another language, especially with some historic context, such as how the Kriegsmarine referred to a Brit aircraft-mounted search lamp as "Das
verdammt licht!
" See how much more enjoyable swearing can be with a little panache?
> Das verdammt licht!
"could use a caesura in there", he said shatnerically.
...and what if we want to discuss the folk etymology of @#$%?! As in, "for using carnal knowledge"?
or either Ship High In Transit.
> for using carnal knowledge
allus thought it was Unlawful.
Folk etymology lyrics, as those of folk songs, come down in different ways, no?
oh. all I know by them is Shout! or Jump! or something... thanks, eta. that was oh-so-edifying.
Oh, I thought you meant oh-so-etafying.
