A verse is named from its prevailing kind of foot and the number of feet. For example, “The Merchant of Venice” is in iambic pentameter, and “The Courtship of Miles Standish” is in dactylic hexameter.
Stanzas. A stanza is a group of verses, but these verses are not necessarily of the same length. Monometer, dimeter, and trimeter are not often used for a whole stanza; but they are frequently found in a stanza, introducing variety into it. A stanza made up of tetrameter alternating with trimeter is very common. The stanzas from “Annabel Lee” and “The Village Blacksmith,” found on pages [278] and [279], are excellent examples.
Scansion. Scansion is the separation of a verse of poetry into its component feet. Poetry was originally sung or [276] chanted by bards and troubadours. The accompaniment was a simple strumming on a harp of very few strings, and was hardly more than the beating of time. The chanting must have been much like the sing-song that some people fall into when reading verses now. The first thing in scanning a line of poetry is to drop into its rhythm,—to let it sing itself. When the regular accent is felt, the lines can easily be separated into their metrical feet. Read these lines from “Marmion,” and mark only the accented syllables.
^ ^ ^ ^ “And there she stood so calm and pale,
^ ^ ^ ^ That but her breath ing did not fail, And motion slight of eyes and head,
And of her bosom, warranted
That neither sense nor pulse she lacks,
You might have thought a form of wax
Wrought to the very life was there;
So still she was, so pale, so fair.”
| ^ | ^ | ^ | ^ | ||||
| “And | there | she | stood | so | calm | and | pale, |
| ^ | ^ | ^ | ^ | ||||
| That | but | her | breath | ing | did | not | fail, |
The marked verses have an accented syllable preceded by an unaccented syllable. Such a foot is iambic. There are four feet in each verse; so the poem is written in iambic tetrameter. In the same way, one decides that “The Song of Hiawatha” is written in trochaic tetrameter.
Variations in Metres. In music the bar or measure is not always filled with exactly the same kind of notes arranged in the same order. If the signature reads 3/8, the measure may be filled by any notes that added together equal three eighth notes. It may be a quarter and an eighth, an eighth and a quarter, a dotted quarter, or three eighth notes. So, in poetry the verses are not always as regular as in “Marmion” and “Hiawatha,” although poetry is more regular than [277] music and there are usually few variations of metre in any one poem. A knowledge of the most common forms of variation is necessary to correct scansion.
The commonest variation in verse is the substitution of three eighths for the quarter and the eighth, or the eighth and the quarter. And the very opposite of this often occurs; that is, the substitution of the two-syllable foot for the three-syllable foot. The following, from “The Burial of Sir John Moore,” illustrates what is done. Notice, however, that the beat is quite regular, and the lines lilt along as if there were no change.
^ ^ ^ ^ eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note quarter note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note “Not a drum was heard, not a fun er al note,
^ ^ ^ eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note [eighth note] As his corse to the ram part we hur [ried];
^ ^ ^ ^ eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note quarter note eighth note quarter note Not a sol dier dis charged his fare well shot
^ ^ ^ eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note eighth note [eighth note] O’er the grave where our he ro we bur [ied].”