Scansion

Over four decades ago, Nellie Buchanan had the weight on her shoulders. She was faced with the challenge 0f teaching inner city middle school students the dead language of Latin. As a unsuspecting resident of a city housing project, I was already familiar with Latin because I was a Catholic. In a classroom of over thirty students, this knowledge did little to help me with reading and translating Homer's The Illiad and The Odyssey, two epic poems in dactyllic hexameter. Dactyllic hexameter represents the meter or rhythm of these two epic poems in a long syllable and two short syllables. Alexander Pope translated both epic poems into iambic pentameter which resembles the rhythm of a human heartbeat. Pope most likely translated it into this meter because it was the type of metric line used in English poetry or verse drama. Everybody knows that Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in most of his plays and sonnets. Miss Buchanan was a angular faced woman with red hair she worn in a tight bun on the top of her head. She stood tall, her lanky body straight as she stood in front of the zealous students. Students who were not as excited about Latin or Homer and his writings. Every one in class knew that Latin was a dead language and so it goes with out saying that the Illiad and the Odyssey were Greek poems translated into Latin just for us poor children in the urban concrete jungle. Without this lesson whether it be considered archaic and obscure then and now, I would not have found my passion for all things poetic.

So, Miss Buchanan introduced her uninterested brood to the art of scansion. Scansion is the action of scanning a line or verse to determine its rhythm. It literally saved our lives and her peace of mind because it was a physical as well as cerebral activity. For those who had no understanding of the narratives of The Illiad and The Odyssey, scansion introduced an activity which kept most of us alert and awake. I and a few others were able to get a better understanding of the Latin verses of the works. Our teacher advised us to bring in two supplies for the actual activity, a black and white composition notebook and a No. 2 sharpened pencil.

The following example represents the technique of scansion of EDGar Allen Poe's "The Raven"

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered

weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of

forgotten lore,

While I nodded nearly napping suddenly there

came a tapping,

As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

Remember, your job is to measure a long syllable followed by two short syllables. It should be represented as follows.

/ v v / v v / v v / v v / v v / v v

Now your activity for today is to try your luck with the scansion of Homer's The Illiad. Get out your composition notebook and your pencil. Good Luck!

The wrath do thou sing, O goddess , of Peleus' son, Achilles, that baneful

wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to

Hades many valiant souls of warriors, and made themselves to be a spoil

for dogs and all manner of birds ;and thus the will of Zeus was being

brought to fulfilment;--sing thou thereof from the time when at the first

there parted in strife Atreus son, king of men, and goodly Achilles.