Poetic Meter and Scansion

Scanning a poem and identifying the meter, stanza, and rhyme scheme are only the first steps in analyzing its rhythm. The most important part of the analysis is explaining how this rhythm contributes to the meaning, beauty, and significance of the poem. NB: The following procedure applies to poems that employ meters based on the metrical unit of the “foot” (such as ancient Greek, Latin, or English). See the Additional Links below for information on languages that employ syllabic meters such as Spanish and French.

1. Break the words into syllables, mark the stressed and unstressed syllables, and identify the most common type of metric unit (“foot”); determine whether the poem uses a “rising” or “falling” rhythm.

• Rising meters are predominantly iambic or anapestic:
  • iamb: 2 syllables (unstressed, stressed): to-day.
  • anapest: 3 syllables (unstressed, unstressed, stressed): in-ter-vene.
• Falling meters are predominantly trochaic or dactylic:
  • trochee: 2 syllables (stressed, unstressed): dai-ly.
  • dactyl: 3 syllables (stressed, unstressed, unstressed): yes-ter-day.
• Note that a spondee (two stressed syllables in a single foot: usually two monosyllabic words) can occasionally be substituted for iambs or trochees in various meters; see line 2 of the iambic tetrameter below

2. Name the line according to the number of metric feet (e.g. monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter, octameter).

3. Describe the stanza pattern, including rhyme scheme (indicated alphabetically: e.g., abba cdc: or abcb; etc.)

EXAMPLES: Note that the stressed syllables are indicated with bold type.

Dactylic tetrameter:

   Down in the | val-leys the | sha-dows are | thick-en-ing;
   Stars com-ing | on and the | lights of the | hou-ses . . .

Anapestic Trimeter and Dimeter:

   There was | a young la | -dy from York
   Who had | a great fond | -ness for pork.
     She ate | it all day
     And ne | -ver could play
  'Cause her hand | would not put | down her fork.

Iambic Tetrameter:

   When-as | in silks | my Jul | -ia goes,
   Then, then, | me-thinks, | how sweet | -ly flows
   That li | -que-fac | -tion of | her clothes!

Trochaic Octameter: Note the caesura (metric pause, marked || below) and the elaborate internal and external rhyme scheme.

   Ah, dis | -tinct-ly | I re | -mem-ber || it was | in the | bleak De | -cem-ber;
   And each | sep-'rate | dy-ing | em-ber || wrought its | ghost u | -pon the | floor.
   Ea-ger | -ly I | wished the | mor-row; || vain-ly | I had | sought to | bor-row
   From my | books sur | -cease of | sor-row || sor-row | for the | lost Le | -nore
   For the | rare and | ra-diant | mai-den || whom the | an-gels | name Le | -nore
                                              Name-less | here for | ev-er | -more.

Additional Links:

• Meter—Poetry (Wikipedia, includes information on Latin and Greek, French, Spanish, etc.)
• Syllabic Verse (Wikipedia)
• French Poetry (Wikipedia, includes information on meter, genres, history, etc.)
• Spanish Versification: Syllables (Fred F. Jehle, includes practice exercises)
• Latin Meter and Scansion (Jerard S. White)
• Reading Latin Poetry (Andrew Wilson, includes audio)
• Alexander Pope's poetic Essay on Criticism; see especially lines 337-383, in which he illustrates how many different metric effects can be achieved with iambic pentameter verse