What is scansion pattern

Although some of Fussell's ideas are a bit outdated namely, he doesn't deal with the visual elements of a poem , his approach is complete, concise and useful. Fussell defines meter as "what results when the natural rhythmical movements of colloquial speech are heightened, organized, and regulated so that [repetition] emerges from the relative phonetic haphazard of ordinary utterance.

Of the ways of looking at meter, the most common in English are those that are accentual. English, being of Germanic origin, is a predominantly accentual language. This means that its natural rhythms are not found naturally from syllable to syllable, but rather from one accent to the next. There may be one, two, or three syllables between accents or more, but this is a matter of debate. For this reason most English language poets opt to look at their own meter as accentual or accentual-syllabic.

The former is the more common; adherence to the latter often leads an English language poet toward self-conscious verse, as their predictable rhythms are counter to natural English speech not that it is impossible to create great verse with this technique, but there is a tendency for it to end up so.

To get a bearing on what these rhythms look and sound like, let's start with a method for writing out the rhythms of a poem. This technique is called scansion, and it is important because it puts visual markers onto an otherwise entirely heard phenomenon.

Dactylic foot uses a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. This stressed syllable appears at the beginning and in the middle of the lines. The rhyme scheme of this poem is irregular and unpredictable, and in this stanza it is AAAB. The tric kle of un der ground springs , the bab ble of swol len gul ches un der drenched ferns , l oos ening the grip of their roots , till their hai ry clods…. Walcott has used mixed metrical pattern in this poem.

In this example, the first two lines are using trochaic heptameter, while the final line is using dactylic tetrameter. In the first line, you can notice the use of caesura in the middle; it breaks the monotony and creates a dramatic effect.

This is the famous example of a blank verse , using unrhyming lines with iambic pentameter ten syllables in a line and five are stressed. Scansion demonstrates variation and regularity in poetry.

A caesura indicated by a double-pipe is an indication of a brief pause outside of the metrical rhythm. It may be an initial caesura near the beginning of a line , a medial caesura near the middle of a line , or a terminal caesura near the end of a line. Discuss Discussion Forum Blog Separator. Library All Historical Documents Separator. About About PlayShakespeare. Henry 4. Henry 6. Please consider making a small donation to help keep this site free.

Scansion Overview. What is scansion? How do I read scansion marks?