Poem Scanning

How to Scan a Poem Without a Scanner.... Finding Patterns

Scansion as defined by The Poetry Foundation is: "The analysis of the metrical patterns of a poem by organizing its lines into feet of stressed and unstressed syllables and showing the major pauses, if any. Scansion also involves the classification of a poem’s stanza , structure, and rhyme scheme."

[ Poetry Achieve site ] [Meter and Scansion@OWL] [ Frost Analyzed ]

STEP BY STEP:

Read the poem out loud and see if you notice a particular rhythm in your first reading.

Count the number of syllables in each line, and write that number at the end of the line. Do you see a pattern in the number of syllables?

Put an accent mark (/) over any syllables that absolutely have to be stressed. The way you can figure this out is by trying to say the word several times, each time exaggerating a different syllable. ("AR-tist" or "ar-TIST") (One way will sound much better). You can look words up in the dictionary if you need to.

Put a "U" over the unstressed syllables.

See if the poem is iambic (u/), or sets of one unstressed syllable with one stressed ("ta-DAH!"). If it is, see if you can put in all of the other stress and unstress marks.

Once you see a pattern (for example, unstressed, unstressed, stressed; unstressed, unstressed, stressed . . . ), mark a vertical line between each

unit of the pattern. Those are the "feet."

Read the poem aloud again, this time really accentuating the words you have marked as "stressed." Does it sound right?

Once you've finished with that, see whether each foot in the the poem is:

an Iamb (unstressed-stressed u/) e.g. destroy,

a Trochee (stressed-unstressed /u) e.g. topsy,

an Ananapest (unstressed-unstressed-stressed uu/) e.g. intervene,

a Dactyl (stressed-unstressed-unstressed /uu) e.g. merrily,

a Spondee (stressed-stressed //) e.g. hum-drum

a Pyrrhic (unstressed-unstressed uu) e.g. the sea/ son of/ mists (the "son of" in the middle being unaccented/unaccented.)

Count how many feet each line has. It will probably be one of these: Monometer (one foot), Dimeter (two feet), Trimeter (three feet), Tetrameter (four feet), Pentameter (five feet), or Hexameter (six feet).

Put the foot name as an adjective first and the number of feet as a noun second, and there you go! ("iambic pentameter," "dactylic hexameter," "trochaic tetrameter," etc.)

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SCAN Two Poems by Robert Frost

The Dust of Snow

(sample)

Nothing Gold Can Stay

over each foot add the mark of the foot
divide the lines into feet
add end-rhyme letters to find a pattern

Controlling meter is:

Rhyme pattern is:

Nature's first green is gold

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf,

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day

Nothing gold can stay.

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Controlling meter is:

Rhyme pattern is: