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Currently, this article, Scansion, constitutes an extensive overhaul of Systems of scansion. My intent is that any last useful remnants of Systems of scansion should be integrated into this article, then Systems of scansion be deleted and redirected here.
I will briefly note some of my goals and stances in undertaking this overhaul, so that anyone who cares can develop a more informed approval or disapproval. First, I have aimed at a much more comparative and explanatory treatment; this has involved making a few simplifications in the description of some of the more complex methods, but I don't believe that an exhaustive description of every scansion method ever used would be a virtue. In conjuction with this, I have grouped and sub-grouped notations, not by their graphic likeness, but (as best I can) more by their practical and theoretical likenesses ("Other" is just in chronological order). I have with some regret, eliminated User:DionysosProteus's attractive scansion boxes (sorry!), simply because my method of starting a line with a space (which results in rows of monospaced characters) is so much more accessible to less experienced editors, and, apart from a few pesky characters, is WYSIWYG in editing. And I'm happy to clarify my stance on any other issues that may come up.
Obviously work remains to be done. Most glaringly, the absence of Musical scansion (which should include virtually all temporal metrics -- perhaps that should be the heading) and Generative metrics (even though this is more "metrics" than "scansion") is unacceptable. A brief History might be useful. And I trust that you (dear Wikipedians) will devise further improvements. Phil wink ( talk) 23:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I've removed the block quote from the start of the overview as it seems stylistically inconsistent with other wikipedia articles - an admittedly quick click through a few dozen pages failed to show any others with a similar blue-backgrounded block quote - I'm pasting the text here so it is not lost, and for future reference. Happy to discuss ... here's the removed text ...
T.V.F. Brogan, after having examined virtually every work ever written on versification in English, concluded that it is "a field which in historical terms has been (it is not too extreme to say) a great mass of ignorance, confusion, superficial thinking, category mistakes, argument by spurious analogy, persuasive definitions, and gross abuses of both concepts and terms." [1] |
John Hollander helpfully points out that "English prosody has tended to be a subject for cranks." [2] |
Stumps ( talk) 22:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The current content seems to assume a scope of 'Scansion of English language verse' ... should we change the title accordingly, or expand the contents to take account of other languiages? In particular scansion of classical Greek and Latin verse is obviously of direct relevance to the development of scansion inj English, but there is much of interest to be said about scansion of languages such as French and Russian. Stumps ( talk) 03:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks once more for a wiki article that has no meaning to the layman!
Well done.
I am glad you folks write to amuse yourselves.
68.106.47.124 ( talk) 16:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Scansion is mentioned as a tool for analyzing the syllables in a verse of poetry. It is my recommendation that there is a linkage of Scansion & Foot(Prosody) in the Wikipedia database.
The Foot (prosody) article already uses some of Scansion as it talks about Disyllables, Trisyllables, & Tetra syllables.
[1] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Scansions, when they are musical notation, and metric, measures, are bars in music, Ams, 4 beats or notes, and the phonemes, syllables, one per beat, in either, 1/4 or 2/8 or 4/16 depending on the cantillation of the prosody in the vowels, both the primary and the secondary, each being stressed according to it's type of syntax in grammar, nouns, having initial stress at the front, and verbs having the end, or usual (but not always penultimate stress), then the scansion should reflect actual real scansion and musical notation.
The syllables, one phoneme per beat or note, having either 1 quater note for (L) light weight vowels or (H) for heavy weight vowels 2 quarter notes or 3 quarter notes for superheavy vowels, it is rare to have 4 notes for a vowel but is possible.
That is one way, to mark the prosody, with Longue being 4 notes = 1 Am / Bar and Breve Short being 2 is another way to mark the scansion , like the medieval music notation for chants.
Another way to mark prosody it to speciffically keep the phones /phonemes marked as on per syllable and one per note or beat in the 4/4 time/ tempo of an Am /Bar/ measure of music.
To mark the exact prosody, and to write music , then mark the cantillation for each vowel, with it's prosody being dynamic (S) Fortis Strong and (L) or (W) Lax, for Lenis or Weak dynamic based on the voiced or unvoiced consonants or vowels in the prior note/ syllable. Being marked F LOUD and P for Soft or quiet, and there is varying degree of 1 through 5 FFFF or MF or MP PPPP that is your dynamic, and it will indicate the phase or strength of frequency or colour degree of the clarity and resonance of the note when it is voiced, and the prosaic quality of the register/ pitch/ tonality the rise and fall, is the exact cantillation of the vowel enunciation, of melody and prosody with light syllables having one,ornament or figure and heavy having two notes and super heavy three with the mid being the highest point, starting at the lowest raising to mid then back to tonic or the previous note, it should be raised up if it is voiced, and lowered if unvoiced in the prior syllable or consonant.
SO in that way, the note, a beat, the tone a 1/4 can be subdivided as each IPA International Phonetic Alphabet would suggest, as to how to enunciate the vowel, then subdivide the note each beat, one per syllable/ phoneme or segment of the etymology of the word, based on the onset, nucleus,and coda, the nucleus being the vowel usually, so divide it as 1/16 for light weight vowel, 2/16 ornament or figure for heavy, and for super heavy three ,so 3/16 notes, it is rare but possible to have 4/16 for heavier vowel combination.
In that way each cell, or note, has further division into figures as ornament for the vowel intonation cantillation per beat. If you prefer to make it like the chant music of middle ages, the use as breve 2 notes of the 4 in one Am, or Bar as counting as one scansion, and for heavy make a figure of 4 beats or notes, and super heavy 6 notes, with short being Breve, and Longue being 4 notes, that is the other way, and then mark prosody of the vowels as motifs/ figures for the pattern of rime.
Choose words to fit on the next line that match its rime, the syllable marking of scansion and prosody for the onset, and rime, being nucleus and coda.
That is the proper way to mark the scansions for music. Then the poem becomes a ballade or song! :) ~Krista Kaufman 2018-02-20 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.240.122.244 ( talk) 08:26, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
References
The Scansion page makes assumptions with which by no means all experts on metrics agree, whether they're linguists or literary critics. The crucial assumption is that stress and ictus must be distinguished in English verse. This is closely related to the notion of "beats" as essential to meter in English poetry. This is a reasonable approach: it's Derek Attridge's. The whole page, as currently presented, makes Attridge's system of scansion (or something close to it, like Groves') a foregone conclusion. This system of scansion brings with it a number of further assumptions about the nature of meter and rhythm in verse—as does any system of scansion.
However, though Attridge's method is rightly respected, and in some contexts compelling (e.g., for meters still strongly associated with song), it is not authoritative in the way that Wikipedia generally strives to be. Many critics (including me) will argue that it's possible to make a "traditional" system of scansion account for everything necessary about the meter of a line and the aspects of rhythm that directly interact with the meter. To a generative linguist, on the other hand, the whole "beat" approach looks misguided. Though the generativists are only one competing camp, they too have powerful claims to make.
The irascible note above this in Talk, complaining that a layman can't make sense of this page, may be more apposite than it looks. If meter is something that accustomed readers of poetry respond to more or less directly, it's arguable that a simpler system of scansion has an inherent claim to legitimacy. A traditional, foot-based, "2-level" approach is easier to teach and learn than Attridge's. It merely requires an explanation that meter influences rhythm (giving rise to "promoted stresses," though the term is used differently by Attridge and the current Scansion page), and that rhythm influences the realization of meter (giving rise to common foot-substitutions, of which it's possible to supply quite a short list).
I don't have a good solution to this problem. Naturally I think the whole thing could be redone (and simplified) by using my own approach to scansion, but from a larger perspective this doesn't help at all. There is no consensus on the fundamental questions about meter in poetry, and therefore none on scansion.
By the way, more discussion of relevant points is buried in the collapsed sections of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Poetry/Archive_6#Pipes
Village Explainer ( talk) 18:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: |contribution=
ignored (
help); Missing or empty |title=
(
help)For WikiProject Literature and Linguistics editors - I can't find the "Reason" page.
I would rate this section as higher than "mid-importance" for English Literature.
The page needs to be re-written for the layman (i.e. the student of poetry, of which there are many) - either totally by an expert, or by the original writer with judicious attention to its accessibility.
To wit, this holds primarily because it does not follow a careful sequence of introducing its terms. The "Overview" is too dense, introduces many terms without definition (even "iambic pentameter"), and should provide examples (e.g. of "stresses" and "pulses or beats").
That trend continues.
If the page is to be amended, definitions and arguments such as those exhibited in the talk page above can be noted as controversies.
Please do so relatively quickly, although we as readers appreciate that you have limited resources!
If you would like a recommendation to an expert, Derek Attridge is able to marshal very difficult concepts quite clearly for the layman.
Best,
Dinogaletti ( talk) 07:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Poetry is a eurocentric construct, a westernism. Poetry was always sung, so this article mean little outside european prose-like recitation. Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 19:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||
|
Currently, this article, Scansion, constitutes an extensive overhaul of Systems of scansion. My intent is that any last useful remnants of Systems of scansion should be integrated into this article, then Systems of scansion be deleted and redirected here.
I will briefly note some of my goals and stances in undertaking this overhaul, so that anyone who cares can develop a more informed approval or disapproval. First, I have aimed at a much more comparative and explanatory treatment; this has involved making a few simplifications in the description of some of the more complex methods, but I don't believe that an exhaustive description of every scansion method ever used would be a virtue. In conjuction with this, I have grouped and sub-grouped notations, not by their graphic likeness, but (as best I can) more by their practical and theoretical likenesses ("Other" is just in chronological order). I have with some regret, eliminated User:DionysosProteus's attractive scansion boxes (sorry!), simply because my method of starting a line with a space (which results in rows of monospaced characters) is so much more accessible to less experienced editors, and, apart from a few pesky characters, is WYSIWYG in editing. And I'm happy to clarify my stance on any other issues that may come up.
Obviously work remains to be done. Most glaringly, the absence of Musical scansion (which should include virtually all temporal metrics -- perhaps that should be the heading) and Generative metrics (even though this is more "metrics" than "scansion") is unacceptable. A brief History might be useful. And I trust that you (dear Wikipedians) will devise further improvements. Phil wink ( talk) 23:18, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
I've removed the block quote from the start of the overview as it seems stylistically inconsistent with other wikipedia articles - an admittedly quick click through a few dozen pages failed to show any others with a similar blue-backgrounded block quote - I'm pasting the text here so it is not lost, and for future reference. Happy to discuss ... here's the removed text ...
T.V.F. Brogan, after having examined virtually every work ever written on versification in English, concluded that it is "a field which in historical terms has been (it is not too extreme to say) a great mass of ignorance, confusion, superficial thinking, category mistakes, argument by spurious analogy, persuasive definitions, and gross abuses of both concepts and terms." [1] |
John Hollander helpfully points out that "English prosody has tended to be a subject for cranks." [2] |
Stumps ( talk) 22:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The current content seems to assume a scope of 'Scansion of English language verse' ... should we change the title accordingly, or expand the contents to take account of other languiages? In particular scansion of classical Greek and Latin verse is obviously of direct relevance to the development of scansion inj English, but there is much of interest to be said about scansion of languages such as French and Russian. Stumps ( talk) 03:20, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Thanks once more for a wiki article that has no meaning to the layman!
Well done.
I am glad you folks write to amuse yourselves.
68.106.47.124 ( talk) 16:51, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
Scansion is mentioned as a tool for analyzing the syllables in a verse of poetry. It is my recommendation that there is a linkage of Scansion & Foot(Prosody) in the Wikipedia database.
The Foot (prosody) article already uses some of Scansion as it talks about Disyllables, Trisyllables, & Tetra syllables.
[1] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Scansions, when they are musical notation, and metric, measures, are bars in music, Ams, 4 beats or notes, and the phonemes, syllables, one per beat, in either, 1/4 or 2/8 or 4/16 depending on the cantillation of the prosody in the vowels, both the primary and the secondary, each being stressed according to it's type of syntax in grammar, nouns, having initial stress at the front, and verbs having the end, or usual (but not always penultimate stress), then the scansion should reflect actual real scansion and musical notation.
The syllables, one phoneme per beat or note, having either 1 quater note for (L) light weight vowels or (H) for heavy weight vowels 2 quarter notes or 3 quarter notes for superheavy vowels, it is rare to have 4 notes for a vowel but is possible.
That is one way, to mark the prosody, with Longue being 4 notes = 1 Am / Bar and Breve Short being 2 is another way to mark the scansion , like the medieval music notation for chants.
Another way to mark prosody it to speciffically keep the phones /phonemes marked as on per syllable and one per note or beat in the 4/4 time/ tempo of an Am /Bar/ measure of music.
To mark the exact prosody, and to write music , then mark the cantillation for each vowel, with it's prosody being dynamic (S) Fortis Strong and (L) or (W) Lax, for Lenis or Weak dynamic based on the voiced or unvoiced consonants or vowels in the prior note/ syllable. Being marked F LOUD and P for Soft or quiet, and there is varying degree of 1 through 5 FFFF or MF or MP PPPP that is your dynamic, and it will indicate the phase or strength of frequency or colour degree of the clarity and resonance of the note when it is voiced, and the prosaic quality of the register/ pitch/ tonality the rise and fall, is the exact cantillation of the vowel enunciation, of melody and prosody with light syllables having one,ornament or figure and heavy having two notes and super heavy three with the mid being the highest point, starting at the lowest raising to mid then back to tonic or the previous note, it should be raised up if it is voiced, and lowered if unvoiced in the prior syllable or consonant.
SO in that way, the note, a beat, the tone a 1/4 can be subdivided as each IPA International Phonetic Alphabet would suggest, as to how to enunciate the vowel, then subdivide the note each beat, one per syllable/ phoneme or segment of the etymology of the word, based on the onset, nucleus,and coda, the nucleus being the vowel usually, so divide it as 1/16 for light weight vowel, 2/16 ornament or figure for heavy, and for super heavy three ,so 3/16 notes, it is rare but possible to have 4/16 for heavier vowel combination.
In that way each cell, or note, has further division into figures as ornament for the vowel intonation cantillation per beat. If you prefer to make it like the chant music of middle ages, the use as breve 2 notes of the 4 in one Am, or Bar as counting as one scansion, and for heavy make a figure of 4 beats or notes, and super heavy 6 notes, with short being Breve, and Longue being 4 notes, that is the other way, and then mark prosody of the vowels as motifs/ figures for the pattern of rime.
Choose words to fit on the next line that match its rime, the syllable marking of scansion and prosody for the onset, and rime, being nucleus and coda.
That is the proper way to mark the scansions for music. Then the poem becomes a ballade or song! :) ~Krista Kaufman 2018-02-20 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.240.122.244 ( talk) 08:26, 20 February 2018 (UTC)
References
The Scansion page makes assumptions with which by no means all experts on metrics agree, whether they're linguists or literary critics. The crucial assumption is that stress and ictus must be distinguished in English verse. This is closely related to the notion of "beats" as essential to meter in English poetry. This is a reasonable approach: it's Derek Attridge's. The whole page, as currently presented, makes Attridge's system of scansion (or something close to it, like Groves') a foregone conclusion. This system of scansion brings with it a number of further assumptions about the nature of meter and rhythm in verse—as does any system of scansion.
However, though Attridge's method is rightly respected, and in some contexts compelling (e.g., for meters still strongly associated with song), it is not authoritative in the way that Wikipedia generally strives to be. Many critics (including me) will argue that it's possible to make a "traditional" system of scansion account for everything necessary about the meter of a line and the aspects of rhythm that directly interact with the meter. To a generative linguist, on the other hand, the whole "beat" approach looks misguided. Though the generativists are only one competing camp, they too have powerful claims to make.
The irascible note above this in Talk, complaining that a layman can't make sense of this page, may be more apposite than it looks. If meter is something that accustomed readers of poetry respond to more or less directly, it's arguable that a simpler system of scansion has an inherent claim to legitimacy. A traditional, foot-based, "2-level" approach is easier to teach and learn than Attridge's. It merely requires an explanation that meter influences rhythm (giving rise to "promoted stresses," though the term is used differently by Attridge and the current Scansion page), and that rhythm influences the realization of meter (giving rise to common foot-substitutions, of which it's possible to supply quite a short list).
I don't have a good solution to this problem. Naturally I think the whole thing could be redone (and simplified) by using my own approach to scansion, but from a larger perspective this doesn't help at all. There is no consensus on the fundamental questions about meter in poetry, and therefore none on scansion.
By the way, more discussion of relevant points is buried in the collapsed sections of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Poetry/Archive_6#Pipes
Village Explainer ( talk) 18:32, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
{{
citation}}
: |contribution=
ignored (
help); Missing or empty |title=
(
help)For WikiProject Literature and Linguistics editors - I can't find the "Reason" page.
I would rate this section as higher than "mid-importance" for English Literature.
The page needs to be re-written for the layman (i.e. the student of poetry, of which there are many) - either totally by an expert, or by the original writer with judicious attention to its accessibility.
To wit, this holds primarily because it does not follow a careful sequence of introducing its terms. The "Overview" is too dense, introduces many terms without definition (even "iambic pentameter"), and should provide examples (e.g. of "stresses" and "pulses or beats").
That trend continues.
If the page is to be amended, definitions and arguments such as those exhibited in the talk page above can be noted as controversies.
Please do so relatively quickly, although we as readers appreciate that you have limited resources!
If you would like a recommendation to an expert, Derek Attridge is able to marshal very difficult concepts quite clearly for the layman.
Best,
Dinogaletti ( talk) 07:37, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Poetry is a eurocentric construct, a westernism. Poetry was always sung, so this article mean little outside european prose-like recitation. Yoandri Dominguez Garcia 19:37, 31 October 2018 (UTC)