The Mighty (and Not So Mighty) Pause
Ferrick Gray
Poetically Speaking
Volume 3, Issue 3 (January 29)
Prefatory Comments
When we are reading prose material, we find that we will naturally pause at different places even if there is no punctuation to signal a pause. When we are reading a verse format, we tend to mark metrical divisions with a (slight) pause at the end of a verse.
In this essay, I will discuss the nature and necessities of such pauses, and how they come together to produce flowing, connected poems. Most of what follows will have more importance to formal structures, but can be applied to others.
Suspensory Pauses
Suspensory pauses are a rather general term covering a number of types of pauses. Mostly, they will appear midway through a verse, or at the end. These are known as medial and final pauses. Suspensory derives from the fact that their position can invoke a feeling of suspense, excitement, or build up of emotion for what is to follow the pause. Enjambment can be used to alter the position of a suspensory pause within a verse or verse-paragraph.
Metrical Pause
Although many may consider the end-of-verse metrical pause as theoretical, it is clearly observed whenever the sense-movement or sense-unit does not prevent it. Theoretically, these mark off units of secondary rhythm which are associated with similar but not identical sounds. This would be the rime. Hence, we typically observe this pause at the end of a verse.
At times, the poet will require regularity in the verses, and so the emphasis will be on strict metrical organization. To successfully achieve coherence, the sense-pause must align with metrical divisions. It is the grammatical and rhetorical arrangement of the words in the verse that is important. In this case, we find an increased use of end-stopping.
Sense-Pause
Everything, whether prose or poetry, is written to convey thoughts, ideas, or emotions. To do this successfully, what we are working on needs to be written in sense units. If not, our work will not be understood or interpreted correctly. Sometimes it is the punctuation that is at fault, as in being incorrectly placed. However, we find ourselves naturally pausing when reading whether or not there is any punctuation. These pauses are known as sense-pauses and coincide with the deviation in sense or thought movement. They do not need to coincide with the metrical pause at the end of a verse, and may occur anywhere in the verse, avoiding monotony. For poets such as Pope and Dryden, this was overcome by pausing not only at the end of a verse, but also as near as possible to the middle. Even though a break in an iambic pentameter verse is not always the best, the medial pause after the sixth syllable was often welcome and produced the required variation in the verse. The same technique is still used by formal poets today.
Caesural Pausing
Caesura is from the Latin, meaning to cut. In classical prosody, the caesura was a break between words within a metrical foot. As far as contemporary English is concerned, it is a pause toward the middle of the verse, which may or may not break a metrical foot. There are four categories of caesura: masculine, feminine, epic, and dramatic. It is the first two that are most relevant to English verse.
Masculine Caesura
The masculine caesura will fall immediately after a heavy (or stressed) syllable. It is more common for it to fall at the end of a sense unit, which may or may not break a metrical foot. Example positions can be illustrated using scansion symbols.
- Rising Rhythm: ˘ ¯ ⸾ (after an iamb)
- Falling Rhythm: ¯ ⸾ ˘ (with the breaking of a trochaic foot, not common)
Most commonly, the caesura will occur no later than the sixth syllable, corresponding to a sense unit. An iambic example would be:
˘ ¯ | ˘ ¯ ⸾ &c. (occurring after the fourth syllable)
˘ ¯ | ˘ ¯ | ˘ ¯ ⸾ &c. (occurring after the sixth syllable)
Feminine Caesura
The feminine caesura will fall immediately after a light (or less stressed) syllable and will more commonly break the metrical foot (although not always).
- Rising Rhythm: ˘ ˘ ⸾ ¯ (within the anapest)
- Falling Rhythm: ¯ ˘ ⸾ ˘ (within the dactyl)
The feminine caesura can be illustrated in an iambic variation:
˘ ¯ | ˘ ¯ | ˘ ˘ ⸾ ¯ &c. (occurring after the sixth syllable and breaking the anapest)
In general, it is the masculine caesura at full pauses (not breaking the metrical foot) that is more satisfying to the ear than the feminine at half-pauses (breaking the metrical foot).
Epic Caesura
The epic caesura is more appropriate to French verse (and so too the alexandrine). It may be applied to English verse with the consideration of hypermetrical syllables. That is, those syllables not belonging to any foot. These syllables are ignored in scansion.
Dramatic Caesura
The dramatic caesura, as the name tends to imply, occurs more commonly in dramatic verse. In most cases, this is the point where one speech ends and the other begins, or for some other interruption.
Compensatory Pauses
In some cases, while performing scansion on particular verses, we find that the expected number of syllables does not correspond to the number of metrical feet. It would appear that some feet have only one syllable (monosyllabic foot). This is definitely the case with truncated verses. What we do need to take into consideration is the duration of these monosyllabic feet.
The compensatory pause is not something that you would necessarily force or purposely employ (although you could for effect), but it can occur quite naturally. However, it is something to be taken very seriously in the reading and/or scansion. It is a more interesting and productive exercise to explain why there are monosyllabic feet.
Monosyllabic feet are permissible if their duration is equal to the adjacent feet. The only possibility of this is if there is a pause that continues the rhythm of the verse. We tend to make a distinct pause between two heavier syllables even when punctuation is not signaled. For example:
And sorrowed Life wept then left
Ănd sōr | rŏwed Līfe | ° wēpt | thĕn lēft
There is a compensatory pause (°) in the third foot to maintain the rhythm of the verse. This is the most important use of the compensatory pause. In this example, too, notice the pause that is immediately announced between the heavier syllables without any required effort by the speaker/reader. If we do not pause, the verse would be awkwardly executed and sound broken in its rhythm.
There may also be the case when punctuation occurs in the monosyllabic foot, which may indicate the presence of timed punctuation or the presence of a half-pause foot. The effect on the verse is much the same, and it is possible that the punctuation could be removed if there is no ambiguity.
Final Comments
In any verse, the pause may be significant (the mighty pause) or have little importance (not so mighty pause). Regardless, pauses find their way into our verses for a variety of reasons. We may be tempted to recognize the main reason as being to maintain rhythm, and this would not be far from wrong. Rhythm in formal verse is extremely important and is part of the beauty in this type of verse.