Anapest: Two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable (da-da-DA).Here is some special terminology that helps us communicate when discussing meter:Ī metrical foot is a unit of metrical measurement that includes stressed and unstressed syllables.
Examples of scansion how to#
We now know how to show meter with scansion, but we also need to know how to talk about it. Ah, that’s more like it: easy to read and easy to type. Another option, which is much clearer, is to use all caps for stressed syllables and all lowercase letters for unstressed syllables: POetry and we can add hyphens to further denote each syllable: PO-e-try. Dictionaries often use quotation marks for stressed syllables and apostrophes for unstressed syllables: PO”e’try’. Some dictionaries include pronunciation guides, which indicate stressed and unstressed syllables. Fortunately, there are some other methods available to us. However, working with breves and slashes on a computer in this manner is tedious and time consuming. You won’t find the breve on your keyboard, but it is available in Microsoft Word by using the Insert –> Symbol function. The breve indicates unstressed syllables, and the slash indicates stressed syllables. Here is a traditional method of marking up a poem, using Edgar Allan Poe’s “ Annabel Lee” as an example: The character that looks like the bottom half of a circle is called a breve. Scansion is the practice of marking up a poem to reveal its meter. Silence (or pauses) also contributes to a poem’s meter. In poetry, meter is determined by accented (stressed) and unaccented (unstressed) syllables. Perinne’s Sound and Sense (aff link) describes this difference clearly and simply: “rhythm is the flow of sound meter is the patterns in the sounds.” The words rhythm and meter are often used interchangeably, but their meanings are slightly different in the context of poetry. Poetry encapsulates all of these definitions of rhythm. Movement, fluctuation, or variation marked by the regular recurrence or natural flow of related elements
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