A system of scansion is a way to mark the metrical patterns of a line of poetry, by dividing lines into smaller units called feet. In the classical poetry of Ancient Greece and Rome, these patterns were based on the different lengths of each syllable -- in English poetry, they are based on the different levels of stress placed on respective syllables. Over the years, many different systems have been established to mark the scansion of a poem.
Classical scansion — macron and breve[]
The classical marks for scansion came from the quantitative meter of classical prosody where long syllables were marked with a macron( ¯), and short syllables were marked with a breve ( ˘).
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| ¯ | Long | Syllable has a long duration |
| ˘ | Short | Syllable has a short duration |
Classical system adopted to English — macron and breve[]
In the accentual prosody of English verse, these marks are still sometimes used to represent stressed and unstressed syllables. However, this robs them of their still potentially useful role in marking quantity (that is, the duration of syllables). Gross & McDowell (1996:4)[1] criticize this form of notation as inappropriate notation that is often used to phrase poetry rather than scan it. ( ˘).
| ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ ˘ ¯ |
| But SOFT! What LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS? |
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| – | Stressed | Syllable carries the stress |
| ˘ | Unstressed | Syllable is not stressed |
Ictus and breve[]
Fussell (1965/1979), Turco (1968/1986), and Williams (1986) all use the ictus for stressed syllables, and the classical breve for unstressed syllables. Corn (1997) describes this as a notation which evolved from the classical notation.
| ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / |
| But SOFT! What LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS? |
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| / | Stressed | Syllable carries the stress |
| ˘ | Unstressed | Syllable is not stressed |
Corn goes on to state that the most common approach adopted for marking fine gradations of stress has been to add the symbol \ for 'intermediate stress'.
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| / | Stressed | Syllable carries strong stress |
| \ | Intermediate stress | Stress on syllable is between strong and weak |
| ˘ | Unstressed | Syllable is not stressed; that is, weak. |
Turco's version of this is to use a dot (·) to indicate the middle syllable in a string of three unstressed syllables has been 'promoted' to a secondary or weaker stress.[2]
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| / | Stressed | Syllable carries strong stress |
| · | Secondary stress | A weak syllable 'promoted' to secondary stress. |
| ˘ | Unstressed | Syllable is not stressed; that is, weak. |
Ictus and x[]
Baldwin (1979) regards the use of the ictus (or slash) and x notation as "normal,"[3] and argues for its benefits. By avoiding the macron and breve traditionally associated with the quantity (length) of syllables, ictus and x notation avoids possible confusions; it also has the advantage of being easily typed. This notation is used by, for example, Steele (1999), and some less specialist books.[4] This is the notation used in the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.[5] This is the notation preferred by the Poetry WikiProject for Wikipedia articles displaying scansion.
| x / x / x / x / x / |
| But SOFT! What LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS? |
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| / | Stressed | Syllable carries the stress |
| x | Unstressed | Syllable is not stressed |
Robert Bridges' accentual prosody[]
- Main article: Bridges' Prosody of Accentual Verse
In developing a prosody for accentual verse, Robert Bridges[6] classifies the following types of syllable:
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| Template:Unicode | Stressed | Syllable carries the stress |
| – | Heavy | Is genuinely long, slows down the reading. For example: broad, bright, down. |
| Template:Unicode | Light | All syllables with short vowels, even those that would be long 'by position' in Classical terms. That is, if the consonants around a short vowel do not genuinely retard the syllable then it will be counted 'light'. Light also includes all classically short syllables. For example the second syllables of 'brighter' and 'brightest' are both light, despite the consonants in the latter. |
| Template:Unicode | Very Short | Very short syllables, such as a syllable containing a short 'i'. Bridges' symbol is actually a shorter version of Template:Unicode. |
| ˘ ⋀ ˘ ⋀ – ⋀ ˘ ⋀ ˘ ⋀ |
| But SOFT! What LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS? |
Trager-Smith notation[]
The linguists George Trager and Henry Lee Smith described a four-stress system in their An Outline of English Structure, (1951). Hobsbaum (1996) describes and uses the system. Corn describes this system as "a little confusing to the eye"[7] and prefers to use a numerical system such as Jespersen's original four-stress system. Wallace (1996:30) asserts that "We should never use four degrees of speech stress for scanning." His objections include that any four-stress system abolishes the spondee, and that the system from Trager & Smith (1951), for example, is "too much machinery ... to keep track of."[8]
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| / | Primary Stress | Heavy stress |
| ⋀ | Secondary Stress | Medium Stress |
| \ | Tertiary Stress | Medium-Light |
| ⌣ | Weak | Light syllable |
Jespersen's system[]
In 1900, Otto Jespersen in his "Notes on Metre" was the first to use a four-stress system.[9] He used the numbers 1 to 4, to indicate varying degrees of stress: strong, half-strong, half-weak, and weak. Steele (1999) and McAuley (1966) both use this as a secondary style of notation. Chomsky and Halle (1968) (in a linguistic, not specifically metrical context) use a similar notation, but in reverse: "1" signifying primary stress, "2" signifying secondary, etc.; some linguistically-oriented descriptions of meter published thereafter used this notation, with "1" being the strongest stress.
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| 4 | Strong | Heavy stress |
| 3 | Half-Strong | Medium Stress |
| 2 | Half-Weak | Medium-Light Syllable |
| 1 | Weak | Light syllable |
Corn's three-stress numerical system[]
Corn (1997:30) uses a simple numerical notation, much like Jespersen, with 1 representing the weakest syllable, and 3 indicating the heaviest stress. He argues that in Jespersen's system the half-strong and the half-weak are the hardest to distinguish, and should be merged.
| Symbol | Syllable Type | Description |
| 3 | Strong | Strong Stress |
| 2 | Medium | Either half-strong or half-weak |
| 1 | Weak | Light syllable; unstressed. |
Attridge's single-line scansion[]
Attridge (1995:213) defines a fairly complicated and descriptive notation:
| Symbol | Syllable type | Description |
| / | Stressed syllable | In metrical verse this is used for a stressed syllable not functioning as a beat (i.e. 'demoted') |
| \ | Syllable with secondary stress | Secondary or subordinate stress. In metrical verse this is used for such a syllable that is not functioning as a beat (i.e. 'demoted') |
| / | Stressed beat | Stressed syllable functioning as a Beat |
| \ | Secondary stress beat | Syllable with secondary or subordinate stress which is functioning as a beat |
| x | Unstressed syllable | An unstressed syllable. In metrical verse this is used for such a syllable that is functioning as an offbeat or as part of an offbeat |
| x | Unstressed beat | An unstressed Syllable functioning as a Beat (i.e. promoted) |
| - | Elided syllable | |
| [/] | Virtual beat | |
| [x] | Virtual offbeat | |
| /̳ | Primary beat in quadruple verse | The symbol is a slash with double underlining. |
| a/ | Stress with alliteration | Used in Alliterative verse |
| | | Division | Division between phrases or stress groups |
| R | Rising stress group | |
| F | Falling stress group | |
| M | Mixed or monosyllabic stress group | |
| ANT | Anticipation | Phrase of anticipation |
| ARR | Arrival | Phrase of arrival |
| STA | Statement | Phrase of statement |
| EXT | Extension | Phrase of extension |
| > | Continuation | Continuation of phrase over line juncture |
Lanier's musical notation[]
In 1880, Sidney Lanier published The Science of English Verse, in which he developed a novel theory exploring the connections between musical notation and meter in poetry. This has not always been viewed kindly. For example Vladimir Nabokov in his Notes on Prosody says: "In my casual perusals, I have of course slammed shut without further ado any such works on English prosody in which I glimpsed a crop of musical notes." (pages 3–4) Template:Expand section
Penny's Poetry Pages system[]
Ictus and breve are easy marks to use in writing, or in typesetting, but not so easy on a typewriter or a word processor. First, both marks require special characters. Second, using them requires sets of two lines, to show the text on one and the accent marks on the other. Spacing must be just so, so that marks and words are matched up precisely, which is hard to do in HTML code.
Therefore on Penny's Poetry Pages, the convention used is to indicate stressed syllables by bold type and/or CAPITALS, while leaving unstressed syllables unbolded and completely in lower case.
See also[]
References[]
- Attridge, Derek (1995), Poetic Rhythm: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-42369-4
- Baldwin, Michael (1982), The Way to Write Poetry, Elm Tree Books, ISBN 0-241-10749-0
- Chomsky, Noam; Halle, Morris (1968), The Sound Pattern of English, Harper & Row
- Corn, Alfred (1997), The Poem's Heartbeat, Story Line Press, ISBN 1-885266-40-5
- Fussell, Paul (1965/1979), Poetic Meter and Poetic Form, McGraw Hill, ISBN 0-07-553606-4
- Grierson, Herbert J.C. (1921), Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-881102-0
- Gross, Harvey Seymour; McDowell, Robert (1996), Sound and Form in Modern Poetry, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0-472-0957-X
- Hobsbaum, Philip (1996), Metre, Rhythm and Verse Form, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-08797-X
- McAuley, James (1966), Versification: A Short Introduction, Michigan State University Press
- Makin, Peter, ed. (1999), Basil Bunting on Poetry, Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-6166-7
- Preminger, A.; Warnke, F.J.; Hardison, O.B. (1965), Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics, ISBN 0-333-18122-0
- Steele, Timothy (1999), All the Fun's in How You Say a Thing, Ohio University Press, ISBN 0-8214-1260-4
- Turco, Lewis (1968/1986), The New Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, ISBN 0-87451-381-2
- Wallace, Robert (1996), "Meter in English: A response", in Baker, David, Meter in English, a Critical Engagement, University of Arkansas Press, pp. 3–44, ISBN 1-55728-444-X
- Williams, Miller (1986), Patterns of Poetry, Louisiana State University Press, ISBN 0-8071-1253-4
- Edward Bysshe, Rules for Making English Verse
- Bastiaan Adriaan Pieter van Dam, Chapters on English Printing, Prosody, and Pronunciation
- Alan Holder, Rethinking Meter
- Tom Hood, A Practical Guide to English Versification
- George Saintsbury, Manual of English Prosody
Notes[]
- ↑ pointing specifically to Grierson (1921:xxiv)
- ↑ Turco (1968/1986:15)
- ↑ "English feet concern themselves with stressed and unstressed syllables, normally notated / and ×. The snag is that some continental measures, including a number of forms that have found their way into English, are concerned with long and short syllables, generally notated – and ⌣. " Baldwin (1979:79)
- ↑ e.g. Makin (1999:199)
- ↑ See, for example, the article on "Iamb." (page 360).
- ↑ see Milton's Prosody
- ↑ Corn (1997:29)
- ↑ Wallace (1996:34)
- ↑ Wallace (1996:30)
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