1. Poetic Scansion
Foot and Line Length

2. Poetic Scansion Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Metrical Feet: Lessons for a Boy
Trochee trips from long to short.
From long to long in solemn sort
Slow spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able
Ever to come up with Dactyl trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;-
With a leap and a bound the swift Anapests throng.

3. Poetic Scansion
Scansion
Scansion is a process by which one analyzes the stressed and unstressed syllables in feet and lines of poetry.

4. Poetic Scansion Iamb: unstressed – stressed
Scansion – Metric Feet
Iamb: unstressed – stressed
Trochee: stressed – unstressed
Anapest: unstressed, unstressed – stressed
Dactyl: stressed – unstressed, unstressed
Spondee: stressed, stressed

5. Poetic Scansion Iamb: da, DA = “awake” Trochee: DA, da = “wakeful”
Scansion – Metric Feet and their sounds…
Iamb: da, DA = “awake”
Trochee: DA, da = “wakeful”
Anapest: da, da, DA = “in a dream”
Dactyl: DA, da, da = “sleepily”
Spondee: DA, DA = “dream house”

6. Poetic Scansion Trimeter: a line with three metrical feet
Scansion – Line Length
Trimeter: a line with three metrical feet
Tetrameter: a line with four metrical feet
Pentameter: a line with five metrical feet
Hexameter: a line with six metrical feet

7. Poetic Scansion PICture your SELF in a BOAT on a River with
The Beatles
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
PICture your SELF in a BOAT on a River with
TANgerine TREE-eees and MARmalade SKIiies
Dactyl = Stressed, Unstressed, Unstressed
Tetrameter = four feet per line
Dactylic Tetrameter