Systems of scansion

A system of scansion is a way to mark the metrical patterns of a line of poetry. In classical poetry, these patterns are based on the different lengths of each syllable, and in English poetry, they are based on the different levels of stress placed on each syllable. In both cases, the meter often has a regular foot. 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 ( ˘). A system for describing conventional rhythms by dividing lines into feet indicating the locations of accents and counting the syllables (marking the rhythm of the poem)

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. ( ˘).

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.

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'.

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]

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.

Robert Bridges' accentual prosody

In developing a prosody for accentual verse, Robert Bridges^[6] classifies the following types of syllable:

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]

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.

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.

Attridge's single-line scansion

Attridge (1995:213) defines a fairly complicated and descriptive notation:

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)

Unicode characters

Unicode (as of version 4.1) provides characters for specifically for metrical notation, whereas previously there were just the two (more general-purpose) characters U+00AF ¯ macron and U+02D8 ˘ breve): ^[10]

Notes

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  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• 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 Check |isbn= value (help) 
• 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  Check date values in: |date= (help)
• 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 

Further reading

• 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