The following explanation of Pope's use of caesura is from "Poetry: A Critical and Historical Introduction" by I. Ribner and H. Morris (1961).

Quote:

We must also note Pope's skillful placing of the caesura, the major break in each of the lines. [...] Note the following:

Quote:

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)

Last edited by Hydra; 10/19/06 04:33 PM.