I would like to find out what scanning a poem means. I have asked everyone I know with out much success. To narrow what I mean down to something that will make answering easier I'm not looking to copy, skimming over, or xerox a copy of a poem. Scanning a poem appeirs to be a function or a protocol in the english literal world.

Sorry for the spelling and thank you for your time. -Bryan

-- Bryan Bracamonte (Brac@radioaustin.com), September 10, 1999

Answers

Scanning a poem usually refers to looking for the rhythmic patterns in a poem. These patterns are found in the arrangment of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, the word "patterns" is a two syllable word. The first syllable, "pat", is the stressed syllable of the word. The second syllable is an unstressed syllable. Therefore the scanning of the word "pattern" would be stressed/unstressed. To scan an entire poem, it typically helps to have some space between the lines. You can then use typical notation to indicate the stressed and unstressed syllables.

Place a "/" over stressed syllables and a "u" over unstressed syllable. So, a line from a Shakespearean sonnet would look like this:

u / u / u / u / u / When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,

Now, you can see that there is a pattern that emerges from marking the syllables. In that line it is "u /". That pattern repeats. The smallest patterns that are repeating in a poem are called "feet". You can then count how many "feet" are in a line. This line contains 5 feet.

Each type of pattern has a particular name. The "u /" foot pattern is called an "iamb". By combining the name for the pattern with the number in each line allows you to say that that line is written in "iambic pentameter" the "penta" comes from the 5. There are many other types of feet as well as varying numbers of feet.

These formulas can be used to create "structured" poetry. The sonnet is one of the most common types of structured poetry. It is written entirely in iambic pentameter and has a specific rhyming scheme. Read the sonnets of Shakespeare at ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext97/1ws0710.txt and see if you can scan the lines and see the pattern.

If you want to know more about scanning poems, most poetry textbooks have a lengthy section on it. If you really enjoy dissecting poems and putting your own together, consider taking classes on the subject.

-- O.M. Jenkins (omjenkins@yahoo.com), September 16, 1999.