Poetic Meter Handout Scansion: Scansion is the dividing of lines of poetry into make up poetic .

. Once the and combined, we can determine the poems Meter: Meter tells us the and the number of in a line of poetry. and and . syllables that of feet are counted

Meter can also be referred to as the Stress: Feet: Poems use A as a measurement tool.

of a poem.

A stress pattern is simply a fancy phrase that poets use to label the and syllables of words or phrases in a poem. These and syllables make up poetic .

includes at least

STRESSED and at least

UNSTRESED syllable.

Lets Put it Together: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? -Shakespeare Sonnet 18 Stress Pattern: ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ / ~ /

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? There is a pattern of , syllables which means that the stress pattern is . There are feet in this line, so that means that it is in pentameter. The for this poem is iambic pentameter.

Your Turn: With the person next to you, try to identify the meter in these lines of poetry/music:

Thou art more lovely and more temperate. -Shakespeare

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. -Mother Goose

Dont worry, be happy. -Bobby McFerrin