SCANSION! HUH! GOOD GOD! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
A note to anyone brave enough to read this:
This is my essay for this class. The scansion doesn't show up properly when I pasted it in from Word so ignore it. (I guess)
In discussing poetry there are many ways that a person might begin. They may choose to discuss the thematic motifs present in the work, they might opt to focus on the images in a given piece, or they might venture into the poem with their task set on discussing the rhythm and meter. Scansion, the act of “scanning” the lines of a poem for its metrical feet and determining where a poem lies in relation to the metrical continuum is not an exact science. It requires many readings, usually out loud, and an understanding of where stresses lie. Scansion, as said previously, is not an exact science; a poem cannot be fed into a formula, go through a few mathematical algorithms and come out the other end a scanned piece of poetry ready to be placed in its corresponding metrically scanned pile. There are certain instances when a reader’s pronunciation of a particular word differs from another readers or even the historic pronunciation of a given word. A great example of this is the word “Fiery”. “Fiery” can be pronounced either “FIE-ER-EE” or “FIE-REE”; depending on the pronunciation the syllabic count changes and thus affects the foot and ultimately influence the scanning of the line.
For some, the fact above bolsters the reasons why one should use scansion to read poetry as it provides rules that are flexible to accommodate all types of poems; for others it the definitive reason to avoid scansion like the plague as it is inexact. It is the belief of this paper’s author that scansion is a valuable tool to deploy when initially discussing a poem. Before discussing content, the form must be visualized; then and only then can one combine a reading of the content with the form to have a fully realized idea of what a poem and its poet seeks to convey. In Lampman’s poem The City of the End of Things the reader is presented with an epic in three parts that is written in slightly regular iambic tetrameter with many variations in certain feet that reinforce a few particular movements in the piece. An appendix at the end of this essay is available for perusal, but due to length constraints a mere handful of scanned lines of particular interest will be discussed in detail. It is the authors hope that this essay will act as a primer, rather than a definitive scansion of Lampman’s poem.
In Lampman’s introductory stanza he writes:
Beside the pound- ing cat- aracts
x / x / x / x /
Of mid- night streams unknown to us
x / x / x / x /
‘Tis build- ed in the leaf- less tracts
/ / x x x / x /
And vall- eys huge of Tar- tarus.
x / x / x / x /
Lurid and loft- y and vast it seems;
/ x x / x x / x /
It hath no round- ed name that rings,
x / x / x / x /
But I have heard it called in dreams
x / x / x / x /
The Ci- ty of the End of Things.
x / x x x / x / (1-8)
To begin with, Lampman’s initial line sets down the framing. In the first two lines Lampman writes in iambic tetrameter, in line three he mixes the rhythm, jarring the line by starting the first foot of the third line with a spondee followed by a pyrrhic foot and ending the line with two iambic feet. This jarring of the spondaic and pyrrhic foot creates a tumultuous rhythm that seeks to shake the reader out of the comfort of the previous iambic lines. Looking at the content of the three lines in conjunction with the form brings something of interest to the surface:
Beside the pounding cataracts
Of midnight streams unknown to us
‘Tis builded in the leafless tracts (1-3)
The first two lines of the three singled out above employ two very natural images, the “pounding cataracts” and the “midnight streams”. The former is sublime, while the latter subdued. The third line with its first foot of spondaic energy jars the reader out of the sublime image of the waterfalls and subdued image of the dark stream, and turns the reader away from those images to ones that are “builded in leafless tracts”. The third line with its initial spondaic and pyrrhic feet thus act as such: they signal to the reader that nature is not the focus of the poem, nor does it play much of a role in this place the poet seeks to bring them. Nature is not even a backdrop, it is an afterthought that is never revisited in the poem.
Line four is uninteresting metrically as Lampman brings us back to iambic tetrameter, but with this return we have an informative allusion to Tartarus; the classic dark abyss of Greek mythology. The word “informative” is specifically chosen as to describe Lampman’s inclusions of Tartarus in The City of the End of Things; the inclusion is not so much interesting as it is informative to the reader of the poet’s intentions, that is that Lampman intends to show the reader a specific hell. Lines 5,6,7 and 8 seem to “catch” the reader from moving too quickly and glazing through their internal lexicon of the definition of hell. Lampman wants to show the readers hell, but this hell is not the classic one. To slow the reader down Lampman employs three major stresses in line 5 “LU-rid”, “LOF-ty”, “VAST” and also adds an extra syllabic to lengthen the meter slightly. Lines 6 and 7 return to iambic tetrameter and simply serve move the poem alone, while line 8 is metrically similar to line 3. Here in line 8 Lampman makes his second revealing point of the stanza as marked by the spondaic foot followed by the pyrrhic foot. Again Lampman jars the reader away from their ideas of hell that may have had the chance to congeal during the previous lines. In line 8 Lampman reveals that his hell is not the Christian hell or the Tartarus of Greek mythology, it is in fact a unique city, a city of apocalypse.
The two following stanzas are of substantial length and have within them some interesting instances of metrical variation. Sadly, as stated above, only a few of the most interesting can be mentioned due to length constraints.
None know- eth how high with- in the night,
/ / x / / x / x /
But in its murk- y streets far down
/ x x / x / / /
A flam- ing terr- ible and bright
x / x / x / x /
Shakes all the stalk- ing shad- ows there,
/ / x / x / x /
Across the walls , across the floors
x / x / x / x / (10-14)
This particular section of the poem is of interest metrically because of the rhythm and urgency in the lines; and also, it is of interest because of what happens to that rhythm when the reader reaches the final line in the segment above. In line 10 Lampman follows the initial iambic tetrameter of line 9 (omitted from above) of the poem with a highly irregular meter. Then Lampman opens the second line with an urgent spondaic foot followed by an iamb, two trochaic feet, and an extra stressed syllable. This line is so full of stresses that it is literally bursting at its meter with an extra stressed syllable. Lampman wants the reader to consider the following description of the “murky streets far down” as being connected to the incomprehensible height of the iron towers in lines 9 and 10. Lines 12 and 13 of the second stanza read:
A flam- ing terr- ible and bright
x / x / x / x /
Shakes all the stalk- ing shad- ows there,
/ / x / x / x / (12-13)
line 12 is iambic tetrameter, while line 13 is not. Line 13 differs only from line 12 by its initial foot which is spondaic rather than iambic. Weather this sponadic first foot was merely a product of employing alliteration in the line, it still affects how one might read the following line which contains something the reader has yet to see in this poem: a ceasura.
Up until line 14 there is energy slowly building in the form of tempo; at line 14, after the ceasura, it is almost ready to break free. The caesura, the pause in the line marked with the double bar ( ), signals to the reader a turn, a change. The change here is the perspective from which we are supposed to view this Hell. As said previously, Lampman subtly weaves the notion that this hell is not the usual hell of fire and brimstone. In line 14 of the poem Lampman inserts the caesura as a marker; there is something here he wants the reader to see if they have not seen it yet. If one returns to the beginning of the stanza and pays attention to the images, one might see that Lampman has created an inversion of what nature is. In the nature, beyond the shade of the tall trees is the sun and sky, in The City of the End of Things, the light comes from deep within the bowel of the city as described in the lines, “A flaming terrible and bright/Shakes all the stalking shadows there.” (12-13). And as for the sky, Lampman provides, “Its roofs and iron towers have grown/None knoweth how high within the night.” (9-10).
Still, most telling of Lampman’s intentions within The City of the End of Things are the following quatrains:
Through its grim depths re-ech oing
x x / / x / x x
And all its wear- y heights of walls,
x / x / x / x /
With mea sured roar and ir- on ring,
x / x / x / x /
The in human music lifts and falls.
x x / x / x / x /
Where no thing rests and no man is,
x / / / x / / /
And on- ly fire and night hold sway;
x / x / x / / /
The beat, the thun der and the hiss
x / x / x x x /
Cease not, and change not, night nor day.
/ / x / / / / / (21-28)
Up until these two quatrains of the poem a person performing a scan of The City of the End of Things might find the changes in foot and meter jarring without reason. The changes may seem to go against anything pleasing to the human sense of rhythm, but this is exactly what Lampman is narrating for the reader. Lines of particular interest are lines 4 and 8. Line 4 gives us a pyrrhic, followed by three trochees, and an extra syllabic stress which can be scanned as such:
The inhumanmusiclifts andfalls.
x x / x / x / x / (24)
This line gives the reader a jab by presenting an almost complete trochaic (DUM-da) inversion of the more rhythmically please iambic (da-DUM). The form of the line equates the content of the line in that Lampman is writing about “inhuman music” that “lifts and falls”; in a way Lampman might be signalling that the rhythm that he has chosen to employ throughout the poem is in fact inhuman and thus would obviously be unpleasing.
Line 8 gives us a spondaic foot, followed by an iambic foot, followed by three more spondees. Line 8 can be scanned as follows:
Cease not, and change not, night nor day.
/ / x / / / / / (28)
Rhythmically this line is strong and punctuated; the flood of stresses that fills the line speak to the futility and repetitiveness of the city. Nothing ever changes in the City of the End of Things; it is the same mechanical monotony day in, day out. The use of two caesuras in the line works to reinforce the content by forcing the reader to depart from natural rhythmic flow of speech by segmenting the feet; the line must be read with pauses, and each segment of the line, as dictated by the caesuras, comes out in fragments which only can be combined at the end to make a cohesive piece. Much like the work completed in assembly lines, products are initially in fragments must be pieced together to make a whole.
There is so much more that has been left unexplored by this essay that the treatment given feels lacking. However, the author of the paper believes that within the allotted space he has made every effort to create a satisfactory primer for reading Lampman’s The City of the End of Things. As well, the author hopes that with this limited scansion of the text some insights have been made as to the intentions of Lampman and as to the benefits of learning and using scansion to analyze poetry. Form and content have a symbiotic relationship wherein meaning is the product; to understand the content with no understanding of the form is to understand the poem partially. And as Alexander Pope famously wrote in his Essay on Criticism, “'Tis not enough no harshness give offense, The sound must seem an echo of the sense.”
This is my essay for this class. The scansion doesn't show up properly when I pasted it in from Word so ignore it. (I guess)
In discussing poetry there are many ways that a person might begin. They may choose to discuss the thematic motifs present in the work, they might opt to focus on the images in a given piece, or they might venture into the poem with their task set on discussing the rhythm and meter. Scansion, the act of “scanning” the lines of a poem for its metrical feet and determining where a poem lies in relation to the metrical continuum is not an exact science. It requires many readings, usually out loud, and an understanding of where stresses lie. Scansion, as said previously, is not an exact science; a poem cannot be fed into a formula, go through a few mathematical algorithms and come out the other end a scanned piece of poetry ready to be placed in its corresponding metrically scanned pile. There are certain instances when a reader’s pronunciation of a particular word differs from another readers or even the historic pronunciation of a given word. A great example of this is the word “Fiery”. “Fiery” can be pronounced either “FIE-ER-EE” or “FIE-REE”; depending on the pronunciation the syllabic count changes and thus affects the foot and ultimately influence the scanning of the line.
For some, the fact above bolsters the reasons why one should use scansion to read poetry as it provides rules that are flexible to accommodate all types of poems; for others it the definitive reason to avoid scansion like the plague as it is inexact. It is the belief of this paper’s author that scansion is a valuable tool to deploy when initially discussing a poem. Before discussing content, the form must be visualized; then and only then can one combine a reading of the content with the form to have a fully realized idea of what a poem and its poet seeks to convey. In Lampman’s poem The City of the End of Things the reader is presented with an epic in three parts that is written in slightly regular iambic tetrameter with many variations in certain feet that reinforce a few particular movements in the piece. An appendix at the end of this essay is available for perusal, but due to length constraints a mere handful of scanned lines of particular interest will be discussed in detail. It is the authors hope that this essay will act as a primer, rather than a definitive scansion of Lampman’s poem.
In Lampman’s introductory stanza he writes:
Beside the pound- ing cat- aracts
x / x / x / x /
Of mid- night streams unknown to us
x / x / x / x /
‘Tis build- ed in the leaf- less tracts
/ / x x x / x /
And vall- eys huge of Tar- tarus.
x / x / x / x /
Lurid and loft- y and vast it seems;
/ x x / x x / x /
It hath no round- ed name that rings,
x / x / x / x /
But I have heard it called in dreams
x / x / x / x /
The Ci- ty of the End of Things.
x / x x x / x / (1-8)
To begin with, Lampman’s initial line sets down the framing. In the first two lines Lampman writes in iambic tetrameter, in line three he mixes the rhythm, jarring the line by starting the first foot of the third line with a spondee followed by a pyrrhic foot and ending the line with two iambic feet. This jarring of the spondaic and pyrrhic foot creates a tumultuous rhythm that seeks to shake the reader out of the comfort of the previous iambic lines. Looking at the content of the three lines in conjunction with the form brings something of interest to the surface:
Beside the pounding cataracts
Of midnight streams unknown to us
‘Tis builded in the leafless tracts (1-3)
The first two lines of the three singled out above employ two very natural images, the “pounding cataracts” and the “midnight streams”. The former is sublime, while the latter subdued. The third line with its first foot of spondaic energy jars the reader out of the sublime image of the waterfalls and subdued image of the dark stream, and turns the reader away from those images to ones that are “builded in leafless tracts”. The third line with its initial spondaic and pyrrhic feet thus act as such: they signal to the reader that nature is not the focus of the poem, nor does it play much of a role in this place the poet seeks to bring them. Nature is not even a backdrop, it is an afterthought that is never revisited in the poem.
Line four is uninteresting metrically as Lampman brings us back to iambic tetrameter, but with this return we have an informative allusion to Tartarus; the classic dark abyss of Greek mythology. The word “informative” is specifically chosen as to describe Lampman’s inclusions of Tartarus in The City of the End of Things; the inclusion is not so much interesting as it is informative to the reader of the poet’s intentions, that is that Lampman intends to show the reader a specific hell. Lines 5,6,7 and 8 seem to “catch” the reader from moving too quickly and glazing through their internal lexicon of the definition of hell. Lampman wants to show the readers hell, but this hell is not the classic one. To slow the reader down Lampman employs three major stresses in line 5 “LU-rid”, “LOF-ty”, “VAST” and also adds an extra syllabic to lengthen the meter slightly. Lines 6 and 7 return to iambic tetrameter and simply serve move the poem alone, while line 8 is metrically similar to line 3. Here in line 8 Lampman makes his second revealing point of the stanza as marked by the spondaic foot followed by the pyrrhic foot. Again Lampman jars the reader away from their ideas of hell that may have had the chance to congeal during the previous lines. In line 8 Lampman reveals that his hell is not the Christian hell or the Tartarus of Greek mythology, it is in fact a unique city, a city of apocalypse.
The two following stanzas are of substantial length and have within them some interesting instances of metrical variation. Sadly, as stated above, only a few of the most interesting can be mentioned due to length constraints.
None know- eth how high with- in the night,
/ / x / / x / x /
But in its murk- y streets far down
/ x x / x / / /
A flam- ing terr- ible and bright
x / x / x / x /
Shakes all the stalk- ing shad- ows there,
/ / x / x / x /
Across the walls , across the floors
x / x / x / x / (10-14)
This particular section of the poem is of interest metrically because of the rhythm and urgency in the lines; and also, it is of interest because of what happens to that rhythm when the reader reaches the final line in the segment above. In line 10 Lampman follows the initial iambic tetrameter of line 9 (omitted from above) of the poem with a highly irregular meter. Then Lampman opens the second line with an urgent spondaic foot followed by an iamb, two trochaic feet, and an extra stressed syllable. This line is so full of stresses that it is literally bursting at its meter with an extra stressed syllable. Lampman wants the reader to consider the following description of the “murky streets far down” as being connected to the incomprehensible height of the iron towers in lines 9 and 10. Lines 12 and 13 of the second stanza read:
A flam- ing terr- ible and bright
x / x / x / x /
Shakes all the stalk- ing shad- ows there,
/ / x / x / x / (12-13)
line 12 is iambic tetrameter, while line 13 is not. Line 13 differs only from line 12 by its initial foot which is spondaic rather than iambic. Weather this sponadic first foot was merely a product of employing alliteration in the line, it still affects how one might read the following line which contains something the reader has yet to see in this poem: a ceasura.
Up until line 14 there is energy slowly building in the form of tempo; at line 14, after the ceasura, it is almost ready to break free. The caesura, the pause in the line marked with the double bar ( ), signals to the reader a turn, a change. The change here is the perspective from which we are supposed to view this Hell. As said previously, Lampman subtly weaves the notion that this hell is not the usual hell of fire and brimstone. In line 14 of the poem Lampman inserts the caesura as a marker; there is something here he wants the reader to see if they have not seen it yet. If one returns to the beginning of the stanza and pays attention to the images, one might see that Lampman has created an inversion of what nature is. In the nature, beyond the shade of the tall trees is the sun and sky, in The City of the End of Things, the light comes from deep within the bowel of the city as described in the lines, “A flaming terrible and bright/Shakes all the stalking shadows there.” (12-13). And as for the sky, Lampman provides, “Its roofs and iron towers have grown/None knoweth how high within the night.” (9-10).
Still, most telling of Lampman’s intentions within The City of the End of Things are the following quatrains:
Through its grim depths re-ech oing
x x / / x / x x
And all its wear- y heights of walls,
x / x / x / x /
With mea sured roar and ir- on ring,
x / x / x / x /
The in human music lifts and falls.
x x / x / x / x /
Where no thing rests and no man is,
x / / / x / / /
And on- ly fire and night hold sway;
x / x / x / / /
The beat, the thun der and the hiss
x / x / x x x /
Cease not, and change not, night nor day.
/ / x / / / / / (21-28)
Up until these two quatrains of the poem a person performing a scan of The City of the End of Things might find the changes in foot and meter jarring without reason. The changes may seem to go against anything pleasing to the human sense of rhythm, but this is exactly what Lampman is narrating for the reader. Lines of particular interest are lines 4 and 8. Line 4 gives us a pyrrhic, followed by three trochees, and an extra syllabic stress which can be scanned as such:
The inhumanmusiclifts andfalls.
x x / x / x / x / (24)
This line gives the reader a jab by presenting an almost complete trochaic (DUM-da) inversion of the more rhythmically please iambic (da-DUM). The form of the line equates the content of the line in that Lampman is writing about “inhuman music” that “lifts and falls”; in a way Lampman might be signalling that the rhythm that he has chosen to employ throughout the poem is in fact inhuman and thus would obviously be unpleasing.
Line 8 gives us a spondaic foot, followed by an iambic foot, followed by three more spondees. Line 8 can be scanned as follows:
Cease not, and change not, night nor day.
/ / x / / / / / (28)
Rhythmically this line is strong and punctuated; the flood of stresses that fills the line speak to the futility and repetitiveness of the city. Nothing ever changes in the City of the End of Things; it is the same mechanical monotony day in, day out. The use of two caesuras in the line works to reinforce the content by forcing the reader to depart from natural rhythmic flow of speech by segmenting the feet; the line must be read with pauses, and each segment of the line, as dictated by the caesuras, comes out in fragments which only can be combined at the end to make a cohesive piece. Much like the work completed in assembly lines, products are initially in fragments must be pieced together to make a whole.
There is so much more that has been left unexplored by this essay that the treatment given feels lacking. However, the author of the paper believes that within the allotted space he has made every effort to create a satisfactory primer for reading Lampman’s The City of the End of Things. As well, the author hopes that with this limited scansion of the text some insights have been made as to the intentions of Lampman and as to the benefits of learning and using scansion to analyze poetry. Form and content have a symbiotic relationship wherein meaning is the product; to understand the content with no understanding of the form is to understand the poem partially. And as Alexander Pope famously wrote in his Essay on Criticism, “'Tis not enough no harshness give offense, The sound must seem an echo of the sense.”
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