feminine caesura

In prosody, a caesura is a pause within a poetic line that disrupts the regular meter. It can occur anywhere in the line and may or may not be marked by punctuation. While sometimes used to emphasize the meter, it often introduces the natural rhythms of speech into poetry, preventing monotony and highlighting meaning.1

A feminine caesura specifically occurs after an unstressed or short syllable. This is distinct from a masculine caesura, which follows a stressed or long syllable. The feminine caesura can be further categorized into epic and lyric caesuras, depending on its placement and relation to the metrical pattern.231