![]() Pairing scansion with other, more recently developed methods of computerized poetry analysis, I guide students to think beyond data output (all those iambs and trochees, say) and consider how data emerges, turning their eagerness to critique scansion into a general critique of graphic representations of data. ![]() The fact that we don’t think of scansion as data visualization-but that students are so ready, even eager, to critique it-makes it an ideal teaching opportunity. ![]() In fact, it’s arguably the most famous data viz system in English literature today. Scansion is essentially a method for data visualization, just like a map or a pie chart it’s a graphical representation of the phonemic data that a poetry scholar locates within a poet’s words. For students taking my English courses at Georgia Tech, these flaws are a chance for thinking critically about the “V” for “visual” in Tech’s signature multimodal “WOVEN” approach. But it is the flaws themselves that concern me here. Why teach a flawed system? Because despite its flaws, it has helped poets write some absolutely stunning poems. I believe that poetry teachers have done students a great disservice by teaching this system without helping students explore these flaws. In fact, an iamb is not a stable, essential unit of English speech, as linguists have long observed. Or perhaps they noticed that this binary system, stressed or unstressed, is really quite rudimentary natural speech is never so simple. They had noticed that even so-called “standard” pronunciation varies wildly (for example, is “homage” pronounced “ho-MAGE” or “HO-mage”? In fact, both are pretty common, according to the pronunciation guide in the Oxford English Dictionary). They had noticed all those single-syllable words-like “hips”-which are never consistently stressed or unstressed. Most English speakers say suc-CESS and CIR-cuit SUC-cess and cir-CUIT are practically different words.īut while few of my first-year students start out knowing why this system works, almost everyone has some idea of its imperfections. They had not learned that in a stress-timed language, a listener’s comprehension of multisyllabic words depends on a speaker’s pronunciation stresses occur differently in mora- and syllable-timed languages. Few know that it works because English is a stress-timed language, and it doesn’t work the same way for, say, Japanese or French, which are mora-timed and syllable-timed, respectively. Putting these two terms together, iambic pentameter is a line of writing that consists of ten syllables in a specific pattern of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, or a short syllable followed by a long syllable.A dash and u-shaped marking are often used to denote stressed and unstressed syllables, respectively.īut few students enter college knowing why this system, “scansion,” was designed in the first place. A line of poetry written in iambic pentameter has five feet = five sets of stressed syllables and unstressed syllables. ‘Penta’ means five, so pentameter simply means five meters. (Interestingly, the iamb sounds a little like a heartbeat). English is the perfect language for iambus because of the way the stressed and unstressed syllables work. For example, deLIGHT, the SUN, forLORN, one DAY, reLEASE. Or another way to think of it it a short syllable followed by a long syllable. In a line of poetry, an ‘iamb’ is a foot or beat consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. If you’ve studied any of Shakespeare’s sonnets you may have heard of ‘iambic pentameter’… but what exactly is iambic pentameter? Iambic Pentameter Definition Iambic Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order. ![]() Plays It is believed that Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total between 15.
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