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Scansion Simplified--- How To Scan A Poem Correctly

Students of English Honours are particularly scared of scansion. I was too. Here I have tried to explain The basics of scansion and I have tried to avoid bookish language as much as possible. Hope this turns out to be useful to you people.


To understand scansion, you have to understand these things first-



1. Syllable- Consider the word 'Belong'. If I tell you to break this word in such a way that those broken pieces cant be broken further, how would you do that? You would break it like this- Be+long. The pieces 'be' and 'long' have only one vowel sound. These pieces containing only one vowel sound are called syllables.

                   The words 'vote', 'spoke', 'fine' have more than one vowel, yet there is only one vowel sound in each of them. So these three are monosyllables, that is, they have only one syllable (one vowel sound) in them. Clear?

 2. Stress or Accent- Accent is a relative emphasis or prominence given to a certain syllable in a word.

   Why are the words - way, long, wind and cold- stressed or accented while others are not? For that you need to learn some tricks. See below.

  





SOME    TRICKS   REGARDING   ACCENT
A. Try to feel the meaning of each word in a sentence. You will gradually develop an intuition which word/syllable is stressed by the poet and which is not.

B. There are some words of two syllables which can be used both as a noun and verb or adjective. In these cases, the noun or adjective form of the word will get accent on the first syllable and the verb form will get accent on the second.

 Consider the words 'Present' and 'Record'---
Sorry for the bad handwriting!














 C. The words 'all', 'yet', and 'still' are usually accented.
 D. Words ending with tion, tious, cious, tial, and tor should be accented like this--
Thank me later!
























3. Foot- Read the lines below






See, there is a pattern in the occurrence of accented and unaccented syllables- one unaccented, then one accented. This pattern is called Foot. After the ending of a foot, put a slash. Foot constitutes Meter.
--> Dimeter- Line with  two feet.
example- Shook down/on me (Bold syllables denote accent)
--> Trimeter- Line with three feet.
example- Slid from/the kitch/en shelf.

--> Tetrameter- 4 feet line.


Example-- Content/with that/my mind/doth bring.( Bold syllables denote accent)

---> Pentameter - 5 feet line.


Example-- To strive/ to seek,/ to find/ and not/ to yield

--> Hexameter- 6 feet line

--> Heptameter- 7 feet line.
Keep in mind that the total number of syllables in a foot can be two or three but not more than three.




These are the different metrical feet in English prosody-
 1. Iamb- This is a foot in which the first syllable is unaccented and the second one is accented. (Disyllabic foot)
Examples- 1. The night/is dark/and I/am far/from home.

               2. Attest/their joy/that hill/and val/ley rings ( Bold and underlined syllables are accented)




         This foot or measure is the commonest in English poetry. A large number best and moving poems are written in Iambic measure.
2. Trochee- One accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable. (Disyllabic foot)
Example- 1. Rich the/treasure,
                    Sweet the/ pleasure.                  
                                                                     [Bold and underlined ones denote  accented syllables]        
                                                                         


                2. Higher/still and/higher,
                    From the/ earth thou/ springest






3. Dactyl- A foot Consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented ones.
Examples-
1. Cannon to/right of them,
    Cannon to/left of them

2.  Cold is thy/ heart and is/ frozen as/ Charity!
     Cold are thy/ children now/ God be thy/ Comforter



4. Anapaestic- Two unaccented syllable then one accented syllable.
Example-  1.Like the dawn/ of the morn
                Or the dews/ of the spring.


 5. Amphibrachic-  Trisyllabic foot in which the middle one is accented and the other two are unaccented.
  Example- Most friendship/is feigning,
                 Most loving/ mere forly.



6. Spondee- Disyllabic foot with both two accented syllables. This foot only acts as a variation, it does not occur predominantly in any poem.

 Example- The long/day wanes/ the slow/ moon climbs/ the deep (The second foot has spondee as variation)


7.  Pyrrhic- Disyllabic foot having two unaccented syllables. This foot too only acts as a variation and does not occur predominantly in any poem.
Example- You chose/ the best/ among/us a/ strong man. [The fourth foot is Pyrrhic]


There are things like Catalectic and Acephalous. But don lose sleep over it. First learn these basics.





Now rewrite the love poem, that you wrote in your teenage years dreaming about your crush, in such a way that it follows the prosodic rules. Cheers!










-Sk Marifur Rahaman
+918481067735
Credits- Bose and Sterling
Poetryfoundation.org







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