Directions: Read about "Scansion" on the right, try to apply the "rules" by looking at the sample on the left, then click on the audio link under line 14 to hear the lines read through your Real Player™ as you scroll through the lines. Be sure to listen more than once to see if the reading matches the scansion marked above lines 9 - 14 of the poem.
Click here for a reading of the lines above.
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"Iambic Pentameter" Using the 4 rules offered in the scansion column (one page back), a reader of this poem might mark the 5 louder syllables per line as shown. The length and (on this page) darkness of the marks are an attempt to show the relative loudness of each syllable throughout the poem. Double marks show the loudest syllables in these lines--in particular, the nots on this page and the word even. Notice that EV-en is a trochee (say TROE-key) that occurs after a long pause. This variation in the rhythm is deliberate and carefully placed to emphasize the speaker's most forceful claim about love--that i |
| Selecting the Best Way to Read a Line
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Which
of the louder syllables should be read as the loudest in the line?
Re-open your word processor and explain for ONE of the comparisons offered
below, which one of two readings of the line makes more sense. Tell which
syllable is emphasized in the way you prefer the line to be read, and tell
what meaning you associate with that reading as opposed to the other way of
reading that is presented.