BACKGROUND: You need this background information on counting in Greek to understand scansion.* It also can help with rhyme scheme and sound effects, such as assonance and alliteration.

Designs for poems, like blueprints, include measurements to show length. For example, a sonnet like the sample at left is fourteen lines long, and each line is 10 syllables long.

But the unit for counting line length isn't the syllable; it's called a "foot." These units were invented and named by the ancient Greeks to describe how a poem is designed and "built." In the sonnets that you will study the units of measure are two syllables long. [For information on three-syllable feet and other variations, see meter.]

The main unit for constructing a line in a sonnet is called the "IAMB" /EYE-am/, which is a quieter syllable followed by a louder syllable. A variation called a "TROCHEE" /TRO-key/ reverses that structure and puts the louder syllable first.

* Your textbook may provide an easier explanation for these terms, but you can click on the term (it should be aqua) to open an online glossary at "Bob's Byway," which will have other clicks inside its definitions and cross-references. The trick to using the glossary, like most Web pages, is to SCROLL DOWN to the term you're looking for, since the alphabetical index only gets you to the page for a letter, like "s" for "scansion."

Sample Sonnet

--- sample iambic feet:

Iambs can be one word, like the word: roMANCE

or two words, like the opening phrase: the EYES

or part of one word plus part of another word, as in the fifth line: ing GOLD

but always two syllables with the second syllable LOUDER than the first. (See accent.)

--- sample trochaic foot: opposite of an "iamb," the "trochee" also has two syllables, but the first syllable is LOUDER, as in the word FLASHing.

The URL for this page is: http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/sonnet116/metrics.htm