Christopher Aruffo, MFA, MBA, MSc, PhD



A Rational Guide to Verse

or, Scansion Made Simple



 

Equality creates verse

A writer of verse-- a poet-- arranges words so their syllables automatically form equal groups.  (A "syllable" is any bunch of letters you pronounce as a single set.)  You don’t have to do anything but read.

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,"

If syllables do not group equally, they are prose.  This is the definitive difference between verse and prose:  verse is made up of equal groups, and prose isn’t.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary." "Mary usually disagrees with us."

A group of syllables is called a foot.  Verse, therefore, can be defined as a series of equal feet.

equal feet

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