Talk:Systems of scansion

Examples

This article would benefit from having examples of the systems discussed. Is it possible for someone expert in these matters to provide them? Mrrhum 16:37, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added examples of four of the most appropriate systems, all using the same line from Romeo and Juliet. I thought it was important to use something whose scansion is indisputable and that was familiar to a broad audience. The emboldening and capitalization may seem a little like overkill, but I think it's important when demonstrating the notation to have a degree of redundancy built-in, so there's no room for misunderstanding. The ⋀ character must be a non-standard width, as the line doesn't match up exactly in a non-proportional typeface. DionysosProteus 02:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Nice job. Stumps 04:13, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

It's nicely done, but it does not demonstrate the need for any more than two distinct marks. 79.107.192.74 (talk) 12:52, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of getting over-complicated, I think there may be a need for 2 scanned examples for each scansion method. The "indisputable" examples are useful, but it is precisely in "difficult" lines that the systems differentiate themselves, and begin to reveal their strengths and weaknesses. May I suggest "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought" as a line which famously stands on the edge of metricality for iambic pentameter? Phil wink (talk) 19:33, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree that a richer range of examples would prove very useful in understanding the different systems, but I am also a little worried that this 'overview' page might become too cluttered, or harder to see 'at a glance' the key notational differences between the systems. I wonder if each notation could have its own 'main page' article, describing history, use, features etc... Not sure if each system could sustain such detailed treatment but it might be worth a try. Stumps (talk) 10:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Retain for editors?

For background, see Talk:Scansion#Merger proposal. I am just trying to read between the lines here, but it seems that some hesitation at my proposal to delete this article may stem from its perceived utility for editors, whereas the new article Scansion has been admittedly written more for readers. To the extent this is right, I offer these suggestions as ways to strengthen the editor aspect of Systems of scansion, while eliminating unnecessary duplication between the 2 articles. (To the extent this is wrong, then what I have to say below is mostly valueless.)

1. Chop out more obscure/difficult scansions: I don't think anyone is seriously advocating musical scansion, Trager-Smith, or Attridge's full panoply for use in Wikipedia, and their representation in Scansion means we still cover them somewhere. Obviously we can haggle over what stays or goes.
2. I see 3 broad styles of scansion implementation in Wikipedia: DP's floating boxes (as seen in this article), my "typewriter" lines (as in Scansion), and scansions aligned by table (as in Wikipedia:WikiProject Poetry#Style and Iambic pentameter). Perhaps there are more. We should show examples of these and perhaps go into some pros and cons.
3. Two of the above implementations use monospaced characters for alignment. Both DP and I seem to have come to a bit of grief over "monospaced" characters that are not monospaced (grrr). I don't know whether this is a Wikipedia issue, a browser or font issue, or what, (therefore I don't know whether everyone will experience the problem in the same way) but I have made some very preliminary notes on the topic which may be usefully addressed in an "editor's" article. (And if anyone knows what is actually going on, please illuminate me!)
4. A small note: the bold caps in the scansion boxes should be removed. Although I see the point of emphasizing why a given mark appears over a syllable, these examples are not strictly correct since the line is thus scanned twice, once via marks, and once via bold caps; bold caps may suggest an exaggerated reading which could give aid to the slander of metrical verse being metronomic verse; a great virtue of placing the scansion on its own line is that the text of the verse itself remains unmolested.
5. If this article is for editors, should it be transfered to the domain of Help:, WP:, or the Poetry WikiProject?

Although I'm happy to help, I will not pursue any of these directives at this time, since the merger proposal is still up in the air, I am not assuming my assumptions are correct, and I've probably already come off as a sufficiently unilateral pest. Phil wink (talk) 05:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)