Scansion and Rhyme Scheme!

Everything you wanted to know…and some things you didn’t!!

Scansion

• The act of determining the metrical character of a line of verse

Meter and Foot

• Meter—the stressed and unstressed notation of the words

• Foot—the unit of meter

Iamb (U/)

The falling out faithful friends, renewing is love.

Trochee (/U)

Double, double toil and trouble

Anapest (UU/)

I am monarch of all I survey

Dactyl (/UU)

Take her up tenderly

He thrusts his fists against the post

Workers earn it.

There they are, my fifty men and women

When I consider how my life was spent

Just for a handful of silver he left us

Spondee (//) and Pyrrhic (UU)

• These are rarely ever for an entire poem because it would sound like nailing a hammer onto a board.

• Sometimes authors will use it to emphasize a line, however…

Who goes with Fergus?

• WHO will go drive with Fergus now,And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,And dance upon the level shore?Young man, lift up your russet brow,And lift your tender eyelids, maid,And brood on hopes and fear no more.And no more turn aside and broodUpon love's bitter mystery;For Fergus rules the brazen cars,And rules the shadows of the wood,And the white breast of the dim seaAnd all dishevelled wandering stars.

Who goes with Fergus?

• WHO will go drive with Fergus now,And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,And dance upon the level shore?Young man, lift up your russet brow,And lift your tender eyelids, maid,And brood on hopes and fear no more.And no more turn aside and broodUpon love's bitter mystery;For Fergus rules the brazen cars,And rules the shadows of the wood,And the white breast of the dim seaAnd all dishevelled wandering stars.

And the white breast of the dim sea

Feet!

• monometer one foot • dimeter two feet • trimeter three feet • tetrameter four feet • pentameter five feet • hexameter six feet • heptameter seven feet • octameter eight feet

Types of Rhyme

• Perfect Rhyme—words are completely in aural correspondence. (Certain and Curtain)

• Slant Rhyme—The words are similar, but lack perfect correspondence. (Found and kind, grime and game)

• Masculine Rhyme—has a single stressed syllable (Fight and tight, stove and trove)

• Feminine Rhyme—a stressed rhyme followed by an unstressed syllabus (carrot and garret, sever and never)

• Visual Rhyme—a rhyme that only looks similar, but when spoken sounds different

Masculine

• Days/Haze• Fat/Cat• Grain/Insane• Tough/Buff• Cars/Stars• Instead/Your head

Feminine

• Thorough/ Furrow• Painted/ Acquainted• Passion/ Fashion• Pleasure/ Treasure

Which of these lines has feminine rhyme? Which has slant rhyme?

• Cease then, nor Order imperfection name:Our proper bliss depends on what we blameKnow thy own point: this kind, this due degreeOf blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit. - In this, or any other sphere,Secure to be as blest as thou canst bear:Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.All nature is but art, unknown to thee;All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;All discord, harmony not understood;All partial evil, universal good:And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT