Guide to Poetic Meter

What happens when you put sound under a microscope? You get scansion—the practice of measuring the rhythms of verse. But before we get too far into this, hear me on this point:

scansion is as much art as it is science.

By “science,” I mean the repeatable system: symbols, stress marks, and metrical feet—the measurable structures that many of us learn to notate, much as one might notate music.

By “art,” I mean the act of listening and interpreting—knowing that speech patterns vary, dialects shape stress differently, and readers may scan the same line in multiple defensible ways. Sometimes ambiguity is the most revealing feature of all. Poetry itself shares roots with song: the word lyric comes from the Greek lyrikos, meaning “of the lyre.” Scansion reminds us, then, that poems live as much in the ear as on the page.

Prosody—the broader study of rhythm, sound, and intonation in language—covers not only poetry but speech itself. Scansion is the tool; prosody is the field it belongs to. Scholars from Aristotle to contemporary linguists have debated how best to describe its workings. For us, the important point is this: prosody is not about chasing a single “correct” answer. It is about learning to hear how poets shape language into pattern, and how those patterns carry meaning.

Consider Alfred Tennyson’s “The Northern Farmer: New Style,” where dialect—“proputty, proputty sticks, and proputty, proputty grows”—anchors rhythm in Lincolnshire speech rather than Standard English. Or Ellen Johnston, the self-taught “factory girl” of Victorian Scotland, whose Scots-dialect poems carry stresses and cadences drawn from the speech of working-class women.

In other words: scansion is not a test. It’s a lens.

What is Scansion?

To scan a line of poetry is to map its rhythm: to notice where stresses naturally fall and how they repeat. Think of it as listening closely and then notating what you hear.

The standard symbols are:

• ˘ = unstressed syllable (breve)

• ´ = stressed syllable (accent)

• // = caesura, a pause in the line

A scansion might look like this:

˘ ´ | ˘ ´ | ˘ ´ | ˘ ´ | ˘ ´
The cur | few tolls | the knell | of part | ing day

That’s iambic pentameter—five iambs, each an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

But here’s the important part: scansion is interpretive, not mechanical. Speech patterns vary, dialects shift stress in different ways, and the same line may scan differently in different readers’ mouths. Try reading Tennyson’s Lincolnshire dialect poem—“proputty, proputty sticks”—and compare it to Standard English. Or read Ellen Johnston’s Scots verse aloud: stresses fall where they would in her community’s speech. In both cases, rhythm emerges from voice.

A few tips for practice:

1. Read the line out loud—more than once.
2. Trust your ear for natural stresses.
3. Mark them with symbols—but don’t worry if the result isn’t “perfect.”
4. Ask: what effect does this rhythm create? How does it work with (or against) the poem’s meaning?

(And if you get frustrated? Good. That means you’re paying attention.)

What is Meter?

At its simplest, meter is the measure of patterned sound in verse. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics defines it this way:

“Meter is the measure of sound patterning in verse, occurring when a rhythm is repeated throughout a passage of language with such regularity that a base unit (such as a foot) becomes a norm and governs poetic composition. Meter is an idealized pattern, a cultural construct understood as artistic shaping of the sound pattern of a language” (872).

In short: meter is what happens when rhythm becomes regular enough that we expect it—and then notice when it’s fulfilled, bent, or broken.

What is a Foot?

In English verse, a foot is a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. We usually distinguish between two degrees of stress: strong and weak.

The major metrical feet are:

• Iamb (iambic): ˘ ´ (unstressed, stressed) → to day

• Trochee (trochaic): ´ ˘ (stressed, unstressed) → table

• Anapest (anapestic): ˘ ˘ ´ (unstressed, unstressed, stressed) → in the dark

• Dactyl (dactylic): ´ ˘ ˘ (stressed, unstressed, unstressed) → elephant

Less common but still important:

• Spondee (spondaic): ´ ´ (two strong stresses).

• Pyrrhic (pyrrhic): ˘ ˘ (two light stresses).

Naming the Meter

We name a line’s meter by combining the foot type with the number of feet per line:

• Monometer = 1 foot

• Dimeter = 2 feet

• Trimeter = 3 feet

• Tetrameter = 4 feet

• Pentameter = 5 feet

• Hexameter = 6 feet

• Heptameter = 7 feet

• Octameter = 8 feet

So: five iambs = iambic pentameter. Four trochees = trochaic tetrameter. And so on.

Occasionally you’ll encounter curiosities like Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall,” written in trochaic octameter (sometimes nicknamed a “fifteener” for its fifteen-syllable lines). These oddities remind us that meter is flexible, not a straitjacket.

Variations Worth Noticing

No poet writes in perfectly regular meter for long. Variations are deliberate and meaningful. Some common ones:

• Feminine ending: an extra unstressed syllable at the end of a line (softens or unsettles the rhythm).

• Masculine ending: the more common ending on a stressed syllable.

• Headless line (acephalous): missing the initial unstressed syllable, giving a clipped or abrupt start.

• Catalectic line: a line missing its final unstressed syllable.

• Elision/Contraction: syllables “squeezed” together to fit meter (o’er for over).

• Substitution: replacing the expected foot with another (e.g. a trochee at the start of an iambic pentameter line).

When you notice variation, ask yourself: what effect does it create? Why here?

Beyond Meter: Rhyme and Rhythm

Meter is one piece of a poem’s sound pattern. Others include:

• Rhyme schemes: couplet (aa), alternate rhyme (abab), enclosed rhyme (abba), terza rima (aba bcb cdc), etc.

• Alliteration, assonance, consonance: repeated sounds that work with or against the meter.

• Enjambment vs. end-stopping: whether a line runs over into the next or pauses at its end.

• Refrain: repeated lines or phrases anchoring the rhythm.

• Caesura: a pause mid-line, often creating a dramatic or meditative effect.

Why Meter Matters

So why count stresses and syllables at all? Because meter reveals choice.

• A poet who fits words neatly into the expected rhythm might be reinforcing tradition, solemnity, or harmony.

• A poet who breaks the rhythm may be reaching for disruption, urgency, or surprise.

• Sometimes meter mirrors subject: a steady rhythm in a love lyric, a jagged line in a lament.

• Sometimes meter resists subject: a grim topic carried in singsong meter, unsettling us.

M. H. Abrams reminds us that there is “considerable dispute about the most valid or useful way to analyze and classify English meters.” For our purposes, you don’t need to solve those disputes. You need to listen for how rhythm works, what choices the poet makes, and what effects those choices carry.

Examining meter is not about being right. Examining meter is about learning to listen.