OTP: Lesson - The Scansion of Poetry - Introduction

The Scansion of Poetry - Introduction

Latin poetry, like poetry in all languages, is rhythmic. Unlike English poetry which relies on stressed and unstressed syllables to establish its rhythm, the rhythm of Latin poetry was based on the quantity of the syllables - how long it takes to pronounce the syllable. In order to determine the rhythmical pattern of Latin poetry, we scan the poem, i.e., we determine whether syllables are long or short and we divide them into feet (a grouping of long and short syllables).

Terminology of Scansion

Before we learn how to scan a line of poetry, we need to have an understanding of the terminology used in scansion.

  • Syllable - the smallest unit of language - the "building blocks" for words.
  • Syllabification - the division of a word into syllables
  • Quantity - the length of a syllable: long or short
  • Foot - a grouping of long and short syllables with specific patterns. The feet that you will encounter in this course are:
    • Dactyl = long, short, short
    • Spondee = long, long
    • Trochee = long, short
    • Iamb = short, long
  • Meter - a line of Latin poetry will follow a specific set of rules, including how many feet are used and which feet are used. Commonly used meters:
    • Hexameter - six feet in a line
    • Pentameter - five feet in a line
    • Dactylic hexameter - a set of six feet per line; the line will always conclude: dactyl, spondee. This is also called "epic meter" as it was used by the epic poets (Homer in Greece and Vergil in Rome)
    • Elegiac couplet: a line in hexameter followed by a line in pentameter. The two lines together tend to form a single concept or idea.
    • Hendecasyllabics: each line contains eleven (hendeca-) syllables in five feet. The first foot may be a spondee, iamb, or trochee, followed by a dactyl, two trochees, and finally a spondee or trochee.
  • Caesura - a pause within a line (the reader would be expected to take a breath here). The second line of an elegiac couplet will always include a caesura between the two halves of the line.

Abbreviations and symbols

  • A long syllable is marked with a dash: —
  • A short syllable is marked with by the letter u
  • A syllable that could be either long or short is marked with the letter x
  • The division between feet is marked with a solid line: |
  • A caesura will be marked with two solid lines: ||

An example of what a scanned lined of dactylic hexameter would look like using the symbols:

 — u u | — u u | — u u | — — | — u u | — x

The feet listed above are:

  • dactyl (long, short, short: — u u )
  • dactyl
  • dactyl
  • spondee (long, long: — — )
  • dactyl
  • spondee (regardless of the actual length of the final syllable, dactylic hexameter is always scanned with a final spondee)