Skip to main content

A.) Scan the following lines from John Keats's poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Mark the syllables, separate the feet with short vertical lines, and...

Scanning poetry means that a person is marking out the rhythm and meter of a particular poem or line within a poem. Most poets try to follow a repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables within each line of poetry. That repetition gives poems rhythm. Each unit of rhythm is called a "foot."


Typically a person will scan a line of poetry by placing marks above each stressed and unstressed syllable. A "-" means unstressed, and a "/" means stressed. That's difficult to do on a computer, so I will use bold for stressed and normal for unstressed. I also can't do a short vertical line on the computer, so I will use a "/" to mark out the feet.



When old' / age shall' / this gen' / -er -a' / -tion waste',
Thou shalt' / re -main', / in midst' / of o' / -ther woe'
Than ours', / a friend' / to man,' / to whom' / thou sayst,'
"BEAU' -ty / is truth', / truth beau' / -ty"---that' / is all'
Ye know' / on earth,' / and all' / ye need' / to know.'



The above rhythm and meter is iambic pentameter. The unstressed/stressed foot is an iamb. There are five of those per line, which is why it is pentameter. Notice that the fourth line in the above section slightly deviates from the iambic rhythm. The first two syllables are stressed/unstressed. That is the trochaic foot.


The rhyme scheme of the above section is ABACB. Lines 1 and 3 rhyme and lines 2 and 5 rhyme; however, the above lines are part of an entire stanza.



O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede 


         Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 


With forest branches and the trodden weed; 


         Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought 


As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! 


         When old age shall this generation waste, 


                Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 


Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 


         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all 


                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.



Within the entire stanza, the first four lines are ABAB. The final six lines, which includes the section in question, are CDEDCE.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more