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1. #Scansion practice university of virginia how to#
2. #Scansion practice university of virginia update#
3. #Scansion practice university of virginia trial#

It appears the lines should be read in an alternation of unstressed with stressed syllables, called iambic meter, but saying the second line aloud as if in conversation, stressing "whose" instead of "dog" brings up a whole new meaning. "His Royal Highness" in the title is a particular prince whose palace is in the London suburb of Kew.Įpigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness

#Scansion practice university of virginia trial#

The user chooses poems from the list and practices scanning poems through trial and error, and the program gives instant feedback.Ī short example from a two-line poem, written in 1738 by Alexander Pope, illustrates how the meaning of lines can change, depending only on which words are stressed. The Help section on the For Better for Verse Web site provides a guide to using the site. "What scansion does is make that effect available to formal analysis." Poets use the interplay between a fixed meter and the variable rhythm of speech to emphasize or elicit different meanings or attitudes, he said.

#Scansion practice university of virginia update#

He wanted to update the practice of scansion to keep it from becoming antiquated, he said. Why scan poems? "There is simply no better way for readers to get an inside line on what versecraft is about," said Tucker, who added he thinks it is essential to learn the metrics of poetry. "This inner structure arises from the interplay of meter (the bones of a poem) with rhythm (its flesh) of abstracted, regular pattern with the pulse of felt, voiced meaning," he said. Studying the elements that go into making a poem is called "prosody." Part of that study is analyzing a poem's meter and rhyme, called "scansion." Scansion is what Tucker is referring to when he talks about "taking an X-ray of the architecture of verse." "Most of the great poetry in English is written in meter," Tucker said. Although that changed in the 20th century, when poets widely began using "free verse" – free of the constraints of rhyme and meter – these elements are still important in understanding poems and many poets still employ them. Since the 14th century, poets writing in English have used accentual-syllabic meter – the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables – to form a poem's structure. In addition to helping college students, he said it could also be useful to high school and graduate students, and other teachers. Coleman Professor of English, has put together a Web site, " For Better for Verse," which he describes as an interactive learning tool that can help students understand what makes metered poetry in English tick. And he has created the equipment to make it possible.

#Scansion practice university of virginia how to#

FebruUniversity of Virginia English professor Herbert "Chip" Tucker wants to help students learn how to "X-ray" poetry.