![]() Systems of scansion, and the assumptions (often tacit or even subconscious) that underlie them, are so numerous and contradictory that it is often difficult to tell whether differences in scansion indicate opposed metrical theories, conflicting understandings of a line's linguistic character, divergent practical goals, or whether they merely constitute a trivial argument over who has the "better ear" for verse. Over the years, many systems have been established to mark the scansion of a poem. In both cases, the meter often has a regular foot. In English poetry, they are based on the different levels of stress placed on each syllable. In classical poetry, these patterns are quantitative based on the different lengths of each syllable. ʃ ə n/ SKAN-shən, rhymes with mansion verb: to scan), or a system of scansion, is the method or practice of determining and (usually) graphically representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse. Disclaimer: The Views and Opinions Expressed in This Post Do Not Reflect the Opinions of This Blogger.An example of scansion over a quote from Alexander Pope.In the next blog post, I’ll show you how they do that.īuy Eric's book here. Eventually students will understand syllable patterns in a series-what Gordon calls “partial synthesis.” Before they do that, students name the metrical feet they have learned to recognize and identify. The previous sentence should ring some bells with MLTers. Uncommon as it is in whole words, the 3-syllable pattern with the final stress takes on great importance when students begin to string syllable patterns together in a series. This syllable pattern is much more common but as you’ll see in later blog posts, it’s not nearly as important in poetic analysis as the pattern unstressed/unstressed/stressed. I also ask students to think of 3-syllable words that follow the pattern unstressed/stressed/unstressed as in the word redundant. Yes, words such as disregard, entertain, imprecise, and understand are rare. Students have a hard time with items 10-12, possibly because most 3-syllable English words are pronounced with a stress on either the first or second syllable, but rarely the third. Stressed/unstressed/unstressed unstressed/unstressed/stressedħ. I use the slash and the upward curve because they’re big and easily distinguishable.ġ. Also, you should know that macrons and breves look smaller and are shaped slightly differently in books of poetic analysis. It’s totally cool that the poetry term “macron” sounds like the musical term “macro beat.” But let me emphasize that the word “macron” is not the name for the stressed syllable it’s the name for the symbol we use to mark the stressed syllable. In spaces 7-12, write three-syllable words that follow the pattern of the examples. In spaces 1-6, write two-syllable words that follow the pattern of the examples. Also write an upward curve called a breve (u ) over each unstressed syllable. After you write a word on a line, write a slash called a macron (/) over the stressed syllable in that word. ![]() On each line below, write two- and three-syllable words. They must think of words on their own that follow patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. In other words, I ask students to transfer their knowledge about syllable stresses to words I haven’t gone over with them. In this exercise, I bridge to generalization-aural/oral. (It’s true that students looked at sentences, so technically, the exercise wasn’t strictly aural but for the most part, students were learning by ear.) The first poetry exercise I posted is equivalent to Gordon’s aural/oral level of learning. Scansion is a system of analyzing and marking metrical feet with symbols.Īrmed with that information, you are now ready to read a poetry exercise that I give my sixth grade students fairly early in the school year. A metrical foot is a group of two or three syllables in which at least one syllable is stressed.
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