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| Basic Concept: Scansion
A "scansion" is an identification and interpretation of the rhythm of a poem. . Rhythm Words in every language are pronounced in syllables, some of which receive a heavier stress than others. Stressed syllabus can be identified by reading slowly a word, phrase, or complete line, noting where the natural emphasis or stress occurs. . The rhythm of a poem is the progression of stressed and unstressed syllables in the words that compose any single line of a poem. Here is an example from Thomas Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush": . Read the line slowly and note where the stressed accents occur: . The terms used to describe the rhythm come from classical Greek poetics (study of poetry): . Monometer - one stress per line Dimeter - two stresses per line Trimeter - three stresses per line Tetrameter - four stresses per line Pentameter - five stresses per line Hexameter - six stresses per line Heptameter - seven stresses per line Octameter - eight stresses per line . Basic Metrical Feet (Patterns of Stresses Syllables) . There are four basic combinations of stressed and unstressed syllables that, along with the number of stresses for per line, identify the patterns of rhythm: . 1) iambic - unstressed syllable followed by an accented syllable . Example: The word "arrive" is pronounced "ar-rive." . 2) anapest - the expansion of iambic, two unstressed syllables followed by an accented syllable . Example: The word "interrupt" is pronounced "in-ter-rupt." . 3) trochaic - stressed syllable followed by an unaccented syllable . Example: The word "active" is pronounced "ac-tive." . 4) dactyl - the expansion of trochaic, one stressed syllable followed by two unaccented syllables . Example: The name "Jennifer" is pronounced "Jen-ni-fer." . Rhyme A related literary element critical to the framing of ideas and communicating the subtle shadings of poetic meaning is rhyme. "Rhyme" refers to the repetition of the same sound pattern within a line or between two or more lines. There are many possible combinations, each of which has its own category: ending rhyme, sight rhyme, feminine rhyme, masculine rhyme, Spenserian rhyme, internal rhyme, broken rhyme, close rhyme, to name a few. . An analysis of the "ending rhyme" is the second component of a scansion. The ending rhyme is determined by identifying the syllabic rhyme at the ends of each line of poetry. This will include both "assonance" and "alliteration." . "Assonance" is the repetition of the same vowel sounds (if not the same letters). "Alliteration" is the repetition of the same consonant sounds (if not the exact letters). . Ending rhyme patterns are usually identified for stanzas (separate sections of a poem composed of two or more lines of poetry). To identify the ending rhyme of any stanza, assign the first letter of the alphabet ("a") to the sound pattern of the end of the first line. Assign that same letter ("a") to the same ending sound pattern that occurs at the end of any other line in the stanza. If the sound pattern of the second line differs from the first, then assign the second letter of the alphabet ("b") to that ending sound pattern. Assign that same letter to the recurring pattern within the same stanza. . Here's an example from the first stanza of Hardy's "The Darkling Thrush": . I leant upon a coppice gate when Frost was spectre grey, a And Winter's dregs made desolate the weakening eye of day. a The tangled bine-stems scored the sky like strings from broken lyres, b And every Spirit upon earth seemed fervorless as I. b . Note: the sound of "lyres" and "I" at the ends of lines 3 and 4 are considered "imperfect rhyme." . Rhythm and Rhyme in Poetic Style In different periods of a society, values and preferences outside the arts often influence the "rules" of creativity. A good example is the influence of Greek and Roman literary style on European and colonial American poetry. Arbiters of literary taste and style in the Neo-classical period (roughly the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) dictated what constituted "good" literature. Believing that the very best possible literature had been composed by the master Greek and Roman poets (Homer and Virgil, for examples), the literary critics whose opinions determined what would be published or not insisted that poetry had to conform to the patterns of the Greek and Roman antecedents. Later, poets of the Romantic Period would rebel against both the styles and the principles of the Neo-classicists, defining their own elements and principles of style, hence, the sharp contrasts in both subject and use of poetic devices. . The Meaning of Rhythm and Rhyme Identifying the rhythm and rhyme schemes is the mechanical part of poetic scansion. After the scansion of these two elements, interpreting their effects is the next step. Poetry is the richest application of human language creativity. Rhythm and rhyme patterns in poetry work in conjunction with other elements of poetry to produce the total "effect" of the work. The critical question about rhythm and rhyme is the same that is necessary to address after analyzing every other poetic device or element: Why? Why has the poet employed these devices? To what effect or to what purpose? . In the third stanza of "The Darkling Thrush," Hardy introduces a bird, "an aged thrush," that launches into a "full hearted even song." An initial reading of "The Darkling Thrush" often results in the interpretation of the bird's song as a symbol of hope for the new century. The consistent rhyme scheme--assigned originally to the earlier stanzas and their tone of despair--and the rhythm of the (death) dirge, even in the stanza in which the song of the bird "in blast-beruffled plume" is introduced would seem to belie any promise of hope, and a more sensitive interpretation would read the message as one of lost faith and hope. . In the case of "The Darkling Thrush," only a close, holistic (whole) analysis that includes attention to the rhythm and rhyme scheme along with all other elements (images, point of view, setting, figurative language use) can provide an interpretation that resolves the ambiguities often assigned to the interpretation of the voice of the poem in the closing stanza: So little cause for carolings of such ecstatic
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