Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poetry/Archive 6

New, poetry connected article
Anthology of Planudes --FocalPoint (talk) 21:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Controversial translation
Please see Talk:Murzynek Bambo. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk to me 19:11, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Notability?
What are the notability guidelines for individual poems? undefined — Bill william compton  Talk   01:28, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi, which poem were you thinking of? WP:NBOOK is the closest I can find at the moment. If you reference significant coverage in multiple strong secondary or tertiary sources you should be okay. Best wishes Span (talk) 11:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. undefined — Bill william compton  Talk   11:55, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Soliciting support for draft WikiProject Bibliographies
Fellow Wikipedians, I have taken the initiative, in consultation with a few others, to draft a WikiProject for Bibliographies. I hope it will be of interest to members of this project. The genesis of this effort has been a recent spate of AfD nominations of lists of publications. For the most part, the articles were not deleted, but that doesn’t mean many of them didn’t need work. A WP article entitled List of subject publications or any list of works, is by any other name, a Bibliography. Bibliographies within WP are specifically identified as a form of List in WP:List, are subject to List notability guidelines and the List Manual of Style. Unfortunately, many of the existing Bibliographies (or lists of publications) are not up to these standards. And there’s a high probability that new lists of publications or new Bibliographies won’t completely meet these standards as well, unless we as a community bring greater visibility to this genre of lists.

So the explicit goals of this draft project are to establish project-level advice for creating good bibliographies, gradually bring the existing set of bibliographies (400+) up to standard and to encourage editors to create bibliographies on topics and authors where appropriate. The goal is not to create bibliographies of everything or on everything.

I think the draft Bibliography project is logically connected to this project and members here would have a lot to contribute. If you are interested in participating, please sign up on the draft project page. If we get sufficient interest, I will move the draft into the Wikipedia space and we can press on. Also, please don’t hesitate to make suggestions on the draft here. I am sure it can be improved, will need some work to comply with Project guidelines and that it will evolve as this thing gets going. Thanks in advance for your support.--Mike Cline (talk) 19:37, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Quality reassessments
There are seven articles listed at WikiProject Poetry/Assessment where a reassement of the article quality has been requested. The most recent of which was listed in April this year, the earliest has apparently been waiting since April 2010. Thryduulf (talk) 11:52, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Hope I'm in the right place
I want to post something about the poem "The Road Not Taken." I saw your "The Raven" article and found Featured article criteria, which suggests using "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate." I can find plenty of analysis on the "The Road Not Taken" poem, but I would rather base my post on the more respected books/writings on the topic. I haven't studied poetry formally so I don't know what these might be. I'm hoping that you can get me started and list a few of the "the relevant literature" and "high-quality reliable sources" in the poetry field that might discuss "The Road Not Taken." Thanks! Cody. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Codydakin (talk • contribs) 19:56, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

Poetry's FAR
nominated Poetry for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. GamerPro64 15:34, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

Harold Pinter
I have nominated this article for the WP:MAINPAGE for 24 December, the 3rd anniversary of his death. Comments at Today's featured article/requests would be appreciated. Jezhotwells (talk) 02:42, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Biker poetry
An inexperienced user has created an article about Biker poetry. I think there may be enough out there for a decent article on the subject, but the current article needs some help. I tagged it for attention, but a trolling sockpuppet well-meaning new user removed the tags. If anyone has an interest in this area, could you take a look? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:58, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

WikiWomen's History Month
Hi everyone. March is Women's History Month and I'm hoping a few folks here at WP:Poetry will have interest in putting on events related to women's roles as poets and subjects of poems. I also pinged folks next door at WP:Lit and WP:Novels. We've created an event page on English Wikipedia (please translate!) and I hope you'll find the inspiration to participate. Please visit the page here: WikiWomen's History Month. Thanks for your consideration and I look forward to seeing events take place! SarahStierch (talk) 19:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm interested. Does anyone have a suggestion for how this project can be part of this? I'd recommend we collaborate on an article or two (or three...) relevant to the idea. --Midnightdreary (talk) 21:08, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * (prompted lurker comment) here's some lists to fill red links List of writers in Who's Who in Contemporary Women's Writing; Prix Femina; Prix_Goncourt; or if you like shooting for ga - i recently saw some Germans Annette von Droste-Hülshoff; Louise von Gall. Slowking4 ⇔ †@1₭ 03:47, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I was thinking of finding an important canonical poet and bringing it up to GA or even FA quality. Anything "contemporary" automatically means I won't be helpful; I only play in the 19th century! :) --Midnightdreary (talk) 13:41, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
 * check out Annette von Droste-Hülshoff then; User:Paul Marston has made a good start, but there are 2 more sources there with isbn. if sarah had another edit-athon i would do the shelf check - hmm, maybe will anyway. the high stubs are: Jorie Graham; Anne Spencer; Pamela Stewart; Velina Hasu Houston. Slowking4 ⇔ †@1₭ 04:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Lyrics and poetry
Please, share your opinion at Village_pump_(policy). And put a hatnote linking to your WikiProject at the top of Lyrics and poetry. --Eleassar my talk 12:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Portal:Arts for featured portal consideration
I've nominated Portal:Arts for featured portal candidacy, discussion is at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Arts. Thank you for your time, &mdash; Cirt (talk) 20:14, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Portal:Arts

Sestina at GAN
Sestina is currently a good article nominee; if someone is interested in reviewing it that would be much appreciated. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 17:52, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Notability advice
Hi, guys, I've been thinking about writing an article about "The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina," by Miller Williams. Before I start on it, does anyone have any advice on whether this is notable enough for its own article? I don't see any particularly relevant guidelines, and WP:NBOOK seems to be a little too specific to books in many aspects to apply... Thanks! Writ Keeper &#9863;&#9812; 18:39, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I think NBOOK is fairly applicable in a sense: if you find enough reliable sources to verify whatever non-trivial information you can include in an article, go for it. Even if it's a stub for now, there's no deadline on Wikipedia. --Midnightdreary (talk) 05:29, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Ross analysis
Recently I've been reading some poetic analysis by Haj Ross, a linguist best known for his earlier work in syntax theory, kind of far removed from literature. More recently he has been publishing ultra-detailed analyses of various well-known poems (see here). Examples:
 * 45-page paper about Blake's 24-line poem The Tyger (he says he wants to write a whole book about this poem)
 * "astoundingly thorough" (per this) semantic analysis of Hopkins' Pied Beauty
 * This discusses his methods and looks at several other poems.

Me, I'm a semi-literate computer grunt who enjoyed reading some of these poems in English 101, but I've never seen anything like the above level of close analysis, especially the Blake paper that (for me) stays interesting the whole way through. And it seems to me that a lot of WP's articles about these famous poems are sourced to sites like Bartleby with no significant amount of secondary analysis. Each such article should really contain some kind of survey of the critical literature about the poem in question. Of course I'm clueless about that literature, beyond these Ross papers. So I was thinking of trying to summarize them in the relevant articles, but that raises the issue of putting too much of this one guy's opinions into otherwise quite scanty WP articles. So I thought I'd better ask here first.

If it helps, despite his linguistics background, Ross is now a professor in an English department, and apparently runs the department's PhD program in poetics, a mixture of literature and linguistics study. I came across these things somewhat by accident, due to interests in linguistics and in statistical language processing.

The advice I'm asking for here is about whether the papers I linked above are anywhere close to being a mainstream literary approach to the poems, whether I should try to summarize the analysis to more length than a sentence or two (I'm mostly interested in the Blake paper), if I try to add anything to the WP articles, or if that creates undue weight.

Obviously it would be best if the articles were expanded quite a lot, to give a spectrum of viewpoints making it easy to add one more without tilting the article's balance, but I don't have the knowledge to attempt anything like that. 69.111.194.167 (talk) 01:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
 * A great find! From my own background and experience with poetry, I would say that these are far from a mainstream analysis of poetry - however, that does not mean they aren't highly useful. They would probably be most effectively used as part of a discussion on 'Structure' within a poem article; what his analysis does not do, it seems to me, is say exactly what the effect is of the structure (e.g. of "Tyger, Tyger [...]") - that's where linguistics is distinct from literary studies. His work could be used successfully in conjunction with other, purely literary, scholars. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 16:23, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Is Shakespeare untouchable?
Of course not. He had free reign and conquered by default of his genius gift and fortitudinous timing. Behind such, we are all shadows, but not without dimensions... the world has much more to offer beyond the observation of expressions. In a multi-located observational/participation world we are all swimming for ground we know we can trust. Reflect thy glow upon me and let me justify my worth.

Ends — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.136.226.195 (talk) 21:01, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Howard W. Robertson
Is this an active project? Please see my plea regarding this article here: Administrators' noticeboard/Archive234. Thanks! Valfontis (talk) 02:44, 11 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I'll keep an eye on it. Span (talk) 04:21, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

"What Must Be Said"
I invite your eyes over to "What Must Be Said". Tempers are running high. Some interesting translation questions are on the table. Thanks Span (talk) 05:03, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Christodoulos Moisa
I would like assistance from project members familiar with New Zealand poetry to determine if Christodoulos is notable. He self publishes his work (which appears to limit its circulation because of copyright) and I have found very few references to him in reliable sources. There is also a WP:COIN issue that would be resolved if reliable sources can be found. His publicity cites comment by critics, but I have not been able to confirm this. A copy of his work is available in our local library (Wellington, NZ), but I have not found any in local bookshops. NealeFamily (talk) 23:12, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Walt Whitman reads Walt Whitman
Just thought I'd share. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 20:57, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Very cool; thanks! Easchiff (talk) 17:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)
 * This might be Walt Whitman, but no one knows for sure. The cylinder was only found around 1991, and "Many think it's a recording of Whitman's own voice" (Poetry Speaks, 2001, p 18). Phil wink (talk) 15:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Home Thoughts from Abroad
I was a bit surprised that this page redirected to an album of 1970s pop ballads by Clifford T Ward. I have had a stab at re-writing it in reference to the well-known Robert Browning poem, but it's the first article that I've written about poetry. Could someone please cast their eyes over it for me? Thanks in advance. Alansplodge (talk) 11:51, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Template:Sonnet
Please take a look at this discussion regarding re-formatting sonnet at WP:BOTREQ.  It Is Me Here   t / c 18:12, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Scansion Example
The recommended Scansion style is 'Ictus and x', and the iambic pentameter article is cited as an example of this - but this article does not use this style! --Simonalexander2005 (talk) 20:43, 27 March 2012 (UTC).
 * Looking back through the edit histories, I see our guidelines were older than the edit that changed the iambic pentameter article's scansion style (Feb. 2006 for us vs Oct. 2007 for the article). However, there was a discussion on the article's talk page that discussed using the style for that article. Should we then choose a different article as an example, revise our guidelines, or change the iambic pentameter article? Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 23:26, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I strongly favor keeping the "Ictus and x" scansion for Wikipedia (I'm happy to list my specific reasons if anyone cares). Reservations: 1) I don't care for the designation. "Ictus" means the syllabic position in the line experienced as a beat. "Slash" is the generally accepted name for the punctuation in question. 2) I think that tables (as used in WikiProject Poetry and Iambic pentameter) are overly complicated. While writing Scansion I hit upon the easy method of just beginning each line with a space to create lines of monospaced characters:

× /    ×  /    ×   /     ×  /      ×    / When I | consid | er how | my light | is spent
 * These lines are extremely easy to type and edit, allow one to position the mark directly above the vowel (which is pretty standard), and are WYSIWYG in the editor. At least 2 serious metrists (Attridge, 1995 and Groves, 1998) have used monospaced lines for scansion in their books, if one needs professional justification. Instead of using the lowercase "x", I've used the multiplication sign, which looks cleaner and de-emphasizes the nonictuses (I happen to think that both "x" and "×" should be acceptable standards for Wikipedia).
 * So in my opinion, the guideline and iambic pentameter article should be updated to reflect the style shown above. Thoughts? Phil wink (talk) 16:42, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Phil wink's proposal seems quite reasonable .... I myself did find it quite hard to line up the fixed width characters and thought the tables were a nice way to guarantee alignment, but I do agree that they are fiddly and might put some editor's off contributing - so, yes, far from ideal. I was also hoping that the tables might look better than the grey-backgrounded fixed width text, but again the result falls short of what I had hoped for. I do think it is worth getting our "house in order" and getting the guidelines, example article, and other major articles in sync. Stumps (talk) 01:24, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Correct, we do need to get these all in sync. Part of the problem is that we have three main pages actually to deal with (in addition to iambic pentameter or any other metre-related articles): Our project page, Systems of scansion and Scansion. Note, though, that there is a merge suggestion tag on Systems of scansion. That might be something to look at as well. I agree with Phil wink that we should use the term slash instead of ictus in those certain places. If you look at Scansion, that article calls it "slash and breve" or "slash and x". And I agree that "x" or "×" is better. Think that I would agree that spacing the characters and using the styles as Phil suggests may be the best way until we find any better way to make WP parse things differently. Thank you. -- JoannaSerah (talk) 23:25, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Full disclosure: anything I advocate which is backed up by Scansion does not constitute consensus; that's just me agreeing with myself. Having said that, I worked hard to make Scansion rational and consistent... and everyone should always agree with me because I'm so wise and good-looking. Phil wink (talk) 03:39, 4 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The section below is the current state of my proposal. I'm signing this note, but not the proposal itself, as it is intended to be a collaborative working text, not a personal post (i.e. I've posted it, but so that it can be edited before it hits the Project Page proper). As you'll see, there are many topics that might well be expanded or contracted. Let me know what you think. Also, I'm trying to see whether there is a markup or template in existence, or that can be developed, which will better serve the display of scansion. Today, I think the line-initial-space (as embodied below) is still the best option, but I'll keep you posted. Phil wink (talk) 18:20, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

I've determined to my satisfaction that there is no existing markup that gives us quite the formatting and flexibility we seem to desire for scansion. I don't think the line-initial-space format is terrible, but if others think it is important to better integrate scansion into regular text by eliminating the outline and shading and allowing indenting while keeping the ability to or use other markup within the scansion, let me know and I will start the process of asking someone to develop a new markup for us. Phil wink (talk) 01:16, 6 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Initial post-proposal post


 * OK, I've put in a "pre-proposal" here. If this moves forward as it stands, it will basically allow us to easily display this look:

 × /    ×  /    ×   /     ×  /      ×    / When I | consid | er how | my light | is spent
 * ...except that it will also allow additional markup (such as ) which the above method does not accommodate nicely. Please let me know whether you agree with this course of action or not. Thanks. Phil wink (talk) 18:14, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review for Sestina
I have opened a Peer Review for the article, Sestina, in the hope that it can eventually be taken to FAC with enough responses and work. Please help in any way you can! Thanks MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 12:41, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Updates
I've updated the "recognized content" list of FA and GA poetry articles on the project page. Can someone let me know how I would go about finding the newer DYK poetry articles so I can update that list? The fact that the list ends with a 2009 dated DYK makes the whole thing look a bit neglected. INeverCry  08:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Philip Larkin
A while ago this page was taken through GA, and then had a further PR to see if it might be taken to FA. A number of issues from the PR have been left unattended since, probably because none of the editors have felt willing and/or able to get to grips with the biggest issue: the Critical opinion section needs rewriting. Currently it contains a lot of useful and well-sourced material, but almost in note form. Personally I am very wary of doing this as the discussions in this section are way over my pay-grade, and I'm fearful of garbling the message. So here I am, wondering if anyone on this project might cast their eyes over the section and find themselves think that slapping it into some nice readable prose would be a straightforward and enjoyable task. Thanks for your time,  almost - instinct 21:21, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Joyce Kilmer GA nomination
The Joyce Kilmer was a GA from 2007-2009. It was reassessed and demoted. I took the last two days to revise it and renominated it to return to GA-status. Please take a look at the article and review it against the GA criteria.--ColonelHenry (talk) 16:35, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Rebecca Hammond Lard
More eyes are needed at Rebecca Hammond Lard. Nationalist tempers are running high. Span (talk) 09:25, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Fascinating subject! I hadn't heard of her (and I'm disappointed in myself). I'm not understanding the specific controversy here. Could you elaborate? I'd love to help, if I'm able. --Midnightdreary (talk) 16:34, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems to lie around the use of the phrase "first poet" and a reluctance to accept that this isn't necessarily a clear statement. Have a look at the history of the article talk page and some of the edit summaries (also some comments subsequently deleted).  One editor has it fixed in their mind that criticisms of the article and changes to the wording are disrespectful to the US.  Unfortunately it's starting to decline into allegations of competence and lack of civility. NtheP (talk) 17:49, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
 * It's mostly to do with article ownership by a shouty new editor unfamiliar with guidelines. See the talk page for more details. Span (talk) 10:33, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Shakespearean character assistance
Can someone help me fill in the proper characters at Shakespeare tetralogy.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 14:55, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Notability?
I was recently involved in a dispute over a poorly written article that I edited so that it at least contained accurate, verifiable information. One editor insisted that the subject, despite the way he/she had originally worded the article, was an English poetical movement/genre and so I shouldn't bring Japanese standards of literary criticism into the equation. I have no problem with English literary movements inspired or influenced by Japanese literature having their own Wikipedia pages, so I suggested as a compromise that the article stay where it is and a new article be created under the name Tanka prose that contained accurate information based on reliable secondary sources.

The article has as yet not been created, and I'm not sure what will become of it, but my dilemma now is that on examining the sources that had previously been cited more closely, they are all primary sources, mostly literary journals and anthologies, created and published by a group of less than 30 apparently non-notable poets. I worry that no information published in reliable secondary sources can be found on such a subject.

My question for WikiProject Poetry is whether an individual poet who has had his writings published but has not been mentioned in secondary sources is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article? And is a poetic genre created by a small group of such poets (and named with a unique neologism they coined) notable, even if the individual poets are not?

elvenscout742 (talk) 04:46, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * To answer one of your questions, yes, I think the genre might be notable enough, even if individual poets are not. I'm wondering if we should be concerned about WP:COI or WP:VANITY. Any evidence of this? --Midnightdreary (talk) 14:50, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, I can't make accusations, but there were only two editors involved on the other side, both of whom have made hardly any edits to articles outside that field. And there appears to have been collusion between them, since one of them had not made a single edit to Wikipedia in over four months before just happening to be "looking for" the so-called "tanka prose" article one day after my edit. He also referred to the poets in the field as "we". The other has hardly made a single edit that was not devoted to so-called "tanka prose" and referred to the article as though it was his property. But then again, someone better versed in English poetry might be able to help in identifying whether this concept should get a Wikipedia article at all or whether it was a vanity page. elvenscout742 (talk) 17:27, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Just noticed. I said of the latter that he has hardly made a single edit that was not devoted to so-called "tanka prose". Basically his only other edits of note were to the haibun article, to which he added a paragraph of text advertising minor poetry journals and blogs and external links to said journals and articles, with no citations to prove their notability. elvenscout742 (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean to be accusatory myself; sorry about that. This might be something to let sit for a month or so and come back to when heads have cooled. Remember that both sides must assume good faith, too. --Midnightdreary (talk) 19:59, 21 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The editor in question has gone ahead and created a new article at Tanka prose that makes almost the same bizarre claims as before, but uses weasel words and takes respected academic sources out of context. Since I am supposed to be on holiday at the moment, I don't have time to check the sources he cites, but one statement could not be backed up by the source he cites because it represents a basic misunderstanding of the Japanese language. When I removed the offending statement (and nothing else) he blankly reverted me. I haven't had a dispute like this on Wikipedia in about 7 years (and at that time I was a hormonal teen ;-), so I don't remember well, but -- what's the proper process for dealing with this? I am deeply inclined to put the article up for deletion, but I'm worried that since he has "sources" and I am reluctant to point out that his sources are blankly wrong (his sources are so obscure that respectable secondary sources have not seen fit to discredit them) that it would be my word against his, and it might appear to outsiders that he has the weight of academic experience on his side. elvenscout742 (talk) 16:07, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

YouTube video
An unregistered editor has consistently added a YouTube link to the "External links" portion of the article on Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee". The video in question is apparently homemade and in no way notable. I have removed it several times, as has a bot. We must use discretion when added external links, lest everyone who ever uploaded a reading of "Annabel Lee" have their YouTube link added as well. This is, ultimately, of no relevance to this article. If I wasn't trying to assume good faith, I might suggest the editor is violating conflict of interest because they are the person in the video. I see no other reason why this editor - whose IP has made no other edits to any other article on Wikipedia - would be so insistent on this link to a non-notable, low quality, homemade video of some generic human being reading this poem in no particular interesting or exciting way. Can someone weigh in on this? The quality of the video/reading are certain subject to POV but, if I can add my own two cents, neither makes it worthy of notice at all. --Midnightdreary (talk) 23:05, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

RfC at Haibun
I'd appreciate input at Talk:Haibun regarding repeated removal of 2 external links by a single editor against consensus. Extensive discussion has taken place at the article Talk page, but there has been no resolution. Haibun is a literary form that originated in Japan, combining prose and verse. Thanks for any comments. --gråb whåt you cån (talk) 13:49, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Spenser
The article on Edmund Spenser‎ is being reworked by students as part of a school project. I'd appreciate more eyes on the page, monitoring the changes. Thanks Span (talk) 03:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The Ruba'i article is of very poor quality and should be removed
The article Ruba'i is almost completely unsourced POV and the article's editors are refusing to allow anyone to replace their ignorant opinions with fact. When I attempted to correct the article based on scholarly sources, the changes were taken down and reverted to the same incorrect misinformation and POV that was there before. This articles editors simply don't know what they're talking about and they will not even consider anything that contradicts their POV. Here are a few examples of actual scholarly sources the ruba'i article's main editors are not allowing to be posted:


 * The article on "The Rubā'ī in Early Persian Literature" in The Cambridge History of Iran (especially, p.633-634)


 * The "Introduction" to the Penguin Classics edition of the The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

The only thing wrong with these sources is the fact that they directly contradict the article editors' POV that the ruba'i was always written as four complete lines (which just simply is not true.) In place of fact, the ruba'i article editors post hearsay and opinion. In the section on "Etymology," for instance, we find:


 * Rubai is like a poetry (Sher in Urdu) which contains four lines. Generally sher in Urdu contains two lines.


 * Example: (Sher) Ulti ho gayi sab tadbeeren kuchh dawa na kaam kiya. Dekha is bimari dil ne aakir kaam tamam kiya. (Rubai) Mar mar ke musafir ne basaya hai tujhe. Rukh sab se phira ke munh dikhaya hai tujhe. Kyon na lipat kar soun tujh se aye qabra. Aakir maine bhi jaan de kar paaya hai tujhe.

without any sources whatsoever. Or better (from the section on "Ruba'i in Bangla")


 * There are many ruba'i writers in Bangla. Rubayyat-e-Omar Khayyam has about 50 translations in the market of Bangla books, many of which preserve the original ruba'i form. The notable ones among these are Rubayat-e-Omar Khayam and Rubayat-e-Hafiz by Kazi Nazrul Islam, Omar Khayamer Rubai by Shakti Chatterjee etc.


 * According to Sa'd Bin Ard, a writer of Bangla ruba'is Rabindranath Tagore, the great Bangla Noble Prize winning poet has also written at least some ruba's in Bangla. One of his famous rubai is

Foole foole dhole dhole bohe kiba mridu bay. Totini hilol tuli kollole bohia jay. Piko kiba kunje kunje kuhu kuhu kuhu gay. Ke jane kishero lagi praano kore haay haay!


 * It means, "Wind continues blowing on flowers moving those. Rivers go on murmerring making waves. It seems cuckoos are cooing in different bushes of plants. The mind is wishing for an unknown thing.

Again, no sources (please, read the article for yourself, you won't find any sources either.) In fact, there are only three external references in this article, all of which are from dictionaries or websites. Articles like this -- which have clearly been hijacked and held hostage by ignoramuses who simply don't know what they're talking about -- are precisely the reason why Wikipedia is viewed as a low-quality source of information unfit for even high school-level essays. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.24.202.15 (talk) 23:23, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Verso sciolto
I would be very grateful if a competent Wikipedian could fix the mess found at Verso sciolto. The definition is pure nonsense, and the music theory category totally wrong. In fact, versi sciolti seems to be an Italian form of blank verse from the Renaissance. A correct definition and re-categorisation would be enough. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:05, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Task force for The Canterbury Tales; or Heere bigynneth a pilgrimage?
The Canterbury Tales is one of the most important collections of stories in the English language. And it's also in an absolutely dire state on Wikipedia. Many of the articles are poorly-written stubs, inconsistent with one another and lacking much good information — or seemingly a way forward.

I propose that we set up a task force that would help to coordinate the improvement of articles relating to The Canterbury Tales (27 altogether); since I've proposed it, I would be willing to start setting up the framework and other admin business.

Who would be interested in participating? MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 22:37, 8 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Not sure I'll be much help, but I'll tag along. I have at hand a few standard editions (Skeat, Benson, and a Norton selection). I may be a bit more use in history of versification topics which, however, will probably be minor considerations for your task force. Phil wink (talk) 23:11, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
 * As mentioned at the Village Pump, I'd be happy to participate.  dci  &#124;  TALK   02:33, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Much appreciated, both of you. I will start to create the appropriate framework for the "task force" and also reach out to other interested members; although I will try to follow WhatamIdoing's advice (at the Village Pump (proposals) talk page) to essentially revive the WikiProject with this particular focus in mind. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 13:21, 11 December 2012 (UTC)


 * The new task force is slowly emerging and can be found here: Canterbury Tales task force. Having never attempted to set up a task force before, I will no doubt make many mistakes, so patience is required! Or expertise in helping me! I'm also trying to revive the general WikiProject, and have updated the participants list. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 21:12, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Wordsworth and geologists
As far as I can see, this aspect of Wordsworth is entirely missing. Uncle G (talk) 12:08, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Good Article Nominee: Philomela
I have spent the last few weeks revising and expanding the article on Philomela. I have proposed my work for Good Article status. If anyone is interested in reviewing it, take a look at WP:GAN. I appreciate it. --ColonelHenry (talk) 02:43, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Chaucer template
As a part of the efforts of The Canterbury Tales task force I've created a preliminary expansion and redesign of the Chaucer navbox at Template:Chaucer/sandbox. Comments are welcome. Phil wink (talk) 19:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed scansion style sheet, with notes

 * These notes are intended to be more or less useful as-is. But they are in a preliminary stage, and also contain provisional notes, queries to interested Wikipedians, and personal statements. [NOTE] indicates provisional discussion text; "I" is phil wink.

Scansion is the act of analyzing and (usually) graphically representing the metrical character of a line of verse. Ideally Wikipedia will scan consistently across articles. Metrical verse is extremely diverse, especially across languages and over time, so universal consistency of scansion may not be possible or even desirable, but these guidelines will serve most English verse well, and may be useful for verse in other languages, too.

Binary marks
In a line of verse each syllable should be marked: ictic syllables with a slash (/) and nonictic syllables with an "x" -- or preferably a multiplication sign (×). [NOTE: It is vital to distinguish between a metrical scansion (as is recommended here) and a rhythmic scansion (which, alone, leads to perdition). I have tried to explain these concepts fairly fully in Scansion, but perhaps some of this should be repeated here.] The line of text is displayed, with a second line of scansion marks above it. Symbols are placed above the first vowel in each syllable. Both lines should begin with a space, so as to display them as monospaced characters; this allows easy WYSIWYG editing and keeps the verse text intact.

×  /     ×  /     ×     /     ×  / ×    / To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

Pipes
The existence, function, and explanatory usefulness of feet in English verse is disputed. Also, while syntactic pauses frequently occur within a line, English verse seldom includes a metrically structural caesura. Therefore it is recommended that both these features remain unmarked unless the specific line requires them. Either can be marked within the text by a pipe (|) or, if they are both marked simultaneously, by a single pipe (|) for feet and two pipes (||) for caesura. Words should not be hyphenated when they are broken up by foot markers.

×  /    ×  / ×   /    ×  /      ×    /  ×     /  × / The princely palace of the sun | stood gorgeous to behold ×   /      ×  /     ×    /      ×   /      ×   /     ×   /     ×      / On state | ly pill | ars build | ed high || of yell | ow burn | ished gold

As can be seen, a cost of including foot or caesura notation is the fragmentation of the verse text.


 * Lumping caesurae and feet together and throwing them both out is a disservice to readers. Since in most historical periods caesura isn't part of the definition of the iambic pentameter (though the Eighteenth Century is arguably an exception), and since it's only in iambic pentameter that the concept has much force at all, I agree that most scansions can do their work adequately without our marking caesurae. But though some prosodists reject the foot, a great many do not. In accentual-syllabic meters (though not in song-based meters), to omit foot divisions is to eliminate information that's crucial to the critically intelligent reading of at least some lines.


 * As for annotation, while fragmenting the line by inserting foot divisions within the text of the line produces a travesty, it's easy to insert them in the scansion itself, which is where they belong in any case. Occasionally the stress or slack marks have to be adjusted slightly away from the first-vowel-of-the-syllable rule, but not often:

x  / |  x  /|x   / |  x  / |  /    / | x    /| x / The princely palace of the sun stood gorgeous to behold
 * (Note that if we acknowledge the existence of feet we'll acknowledge the existence of spondees, as in the fourth position in Golding's line.) Village Explainer (talk) 15:33, 24 December 2012 (UTC)



Smaller matters first: I presented caesurae and feet together because they are both typically noted with pipes so impinge on each other graphically, and they both indicate verse components that are between syllable and line in size. They could be presented independently, but frankly I was already unhappy with the length of my notes and wanted to keep them as compact as possible. I do, however, give completely independent reasons for avoiding their use. The virtues of foot scansion is the big issue here, so first I'll only address the caesura.
 * Defense

In no sense have I "thrown out" the caesura. I do try to suggest that not every comma is one (advice some professional metrists might take to heart!), but then go on to exemplify what I see as the appropriate use of caesura notation in 2 fourteeners and in 1 line of iambic pentameter. You're right that 18th-century iambic pentameter probably has a metrical caesura (probably Surrey too, for example). My own feeling is that typically the rhythms are clear and the texts well-punctuated so marking the caesura really gives no extra information to the reader; however if the point of the passage is "look how these lines have a consistent metrical caesura" clearly the marks would be vital.
 * Caesurae

In contrast, I'd say that lines like poulter's measure or fourteeners (putting aside Chapman and Blake) positively require marked caesurae, which is why I used Golding as my example. Also e.g. Lydgate and possibly sometimes Wyatt may require marked caesurae to clarify verse rhythms which might otherwise appear to be incompetent iambic pentameters.

(As an aside, some time ago, I began some notes on types of "breaks" in verse lines, which you might be interested in; if I ever get it in shape, presumably it'll go into Caesura.)

Possibly the Scansion style sheet could use more specificity, but as I said I already felt it was too long, and my approach was more toward how to do rather than what to do.

In placing my pipes within the text, I was conservatively following what I believed to be "standard practice". In quickly tallying the prosodists I have to hand who mark foot & caesura divisions I find (in roughly chronological order): This confirms my feeling that in-text is "standard". I should note that the lists contain some prosodists who do not embrace foot scansion, but display it as an example. Also there are some prosodists who do promote foot scansion but do not graphically mark feet in their scansions (notably Wimsatt & Beardsley); these of course cannot be tallied.
 * In-text pipes
 * In text: Jakob Schipper, Otto Jespersen, T. S. Omond, George Saintsbury, Robert Bridges, Egerton Smith, Enid Hamer, Seymour Chatman, Paul Fussell, James McAuley, Karl Shapiro & Robert Beum, Harvey Gross, John Hollander, Derek Attridge (both simultaneously), Suzanne Woods, George T. Wright, Robert Wallace, Annie Finch, Dana Gioia (ambivalent), Robert Hass, John Frederick Nims, Barry Weller, Richard Wilbur, Timothy Steele, Robert Shaw, Alfred Corn
 * In scansion line: John Thompson, Joseph Malof, Derek Attridge (both simultaneously), Lewis Turco, Dana Gioia (ambivalent)

This is not to say the standard could not be changed for Wikipedia; but ultimately I considered the graphical notation of feet of little importance because of the big issue...

That the elimination of feet in scansion is "a disservice to readers" is, I think, a bum rap. Unfortunately, I don't think there is much room for compromise on this issue, because we're talking about basically incompatible frames of reference. Footlessness is a disservice to the foot scansion frame of reference, in the same way that foot scansion is a disservice to musical scansion which is a disservice to generative scansion which is... If Wikipedia is going to recommend any scansion style, some frame of reference will have to be preferred and the others subordinated or dismissed. (I will say that I think the method I've put forth is actually about as catholic and flexible as is possible, without admitting manifest self-contradictions resulting in confusion between frames.) Moreover, I deny that there is any "critically intelligent reading" provided by foot scansion which cannot be made more critical and more intelligent by using the 2-line scansion method I've outlined. So I think all I can do is try to explain how an exclusively ictic scansion, and a discrete ictic/rhythmic scansion, can both improve upon the readings of a foot scansion.
 * Foot scansion

You are 100% correct when you indicate above that "stood" has significant stress. But if what we are marking is stress levels within feet, then it seems to me the correct scansion of the line must be

 ×  / |  ×  /|×   × |  ×  / |  /    / | ×    ×| × / The princely palace of the sun stood gorgeous to behold

But several problems result from going down this path (and most of these problems result regardless of whether one uses your 1 substitution or my 3).
 * We see a line with 43% foot substitution, exaggerating the amount of disruption or complexity in this really quite regular line.
 * If we wanted to show stress, we've now done a very bad job, because in English stress occurs on a continuum (really, several continua, since stress results from the combination of ranges of loudness, pitch, length, and vowel reduction!)
 * We have completely given up on providing information on the "beats" felt in the line of verse. I would argue that these 7 regular beats are the strongest (though not the only) element making one line structurally resemble the next and providing a sense of continuity through the text.

To this last, a foot scanner might answer that it is not the bare beats, but rather the 7 feet which define the structure of the fourteener. This, I believe, sums up the traditional view. But now these feet (I think) are reified way beyond their ability to deliver.
 * The foot is recognized as a primary structural component, but without regard to its content. The principle of substitution now opens foot scansion to the worst possible impressionistic abuses (e.g. Saintsbury, Fussell). Why not switch that iamb for a cretic or an antispast or a monosyllable? Now all prose can be scanned as verse. Not only can the feet of a line have wildly varying content, but because of the "independent reality" of the foot, prosodists are free to mark syllable stress with no rule -- and no justification -- but their ears. (Not all foot scanners do this -- I recommend Wright and Steele as excellent and responsible foot scanners -- but philosophically it is hard to avoid this argument ad absurdum.)
 * The foot also encourages people to see the relationship between syllables within a foot as especially strong or even definitive, as opposed to the relationship between syllables across feet which is seen as diminished or unimportant. McAuley and Wimsatt & Beardsley, among the better foot scanners, make this mistake.

Here's how I would scan the line in question:
 * 2-line scansion

 1  4    1  4 1   2    1  4      3    4   1    2  1 4  ×   /    ×  / ×   /    ×  /      ×    /   ×    /  × / The princely palace of the sun | stood gorgeous to behold

Why is this better?
 * The bottom scansion line, rather than attempting to show deceptive binary levels of stress, shows ictus/nonictus -- that is, regardless of the syllable's stress, does it realize a beat in the metrical scheme? This really is a binary proposition, so there is no question of rich information being oversimplified.
 * The top line shows the syllables' levels of stress. Sometimes 3 levels or 4 levels are seen as "definitive" in English, but generally since Chomsky-Halle stress is thought of as a continuum (and that is my sense), so this is a simplification. But it is a much more rich and accurate simplification than a binary mark could be.
 * Also, though I can't prove it, my strong sense is that (somewhat like the Four color theorem) 4 is the maximum number of stress levels needed to explain neighboring syllables in any line of iambic pentameter.
 * Furthermore, the 2s and the 3 are not metrical tricks to make it appear that the pyrrhics and spondee are really iambs for my benefit; rather they represent linguistic actualities. "Stood" would normally be subordinated to "gor" because of the Nuclear Stress Rule. And the prepositions that are raised a touch to "2" legitimately stand in contrast to their neighbors which are dominated by the primary stress within their polysyllabic word (or phonological word in the case of "the sun").

So I believe this method better represents the metrical character of the line and the actual stress profile of its syllables, and allows us to compare the relations between these levels more carefully and explicitly; and it is also more neutrally applicable to a wide range of English verse, whether strongly syllabically constrained like these examples, or looser like ballad meters. To anyone who has managed to get through this screed, first: sorry. Second, you'll appreciate why I did not get overly explanatory or argumentative in the version on the Project page. But if you think some more explanatory passages would be appropriate there, let's work on it. Phil wink (talk) 01:34, 29 December 2012 (UTC)



You've raised a number of familiar arguments about foot-based scansion and about the nature of English stress. A reader who is interested in these debates can plunge into them if given references, and many of those references are available in various scansion articles within Wikipedia (mostly yours, I think). Each person interested in prosody will decide the issues for herself or himself. No one, it seems safe to say, will formulate these decisions in a way likely to convert a large proportion of people who have decided them in different way. That's the problem with devising or declaring a Wikipedia "standard" for scansions. Every scansion system, and every detail within it, entails a theory which some large number of people can reasonably reject. Scansion is in this sense not like spelling: it can't be standardized, even at a particular historical moment.

Scansion is a notation system, though. The fundamental decision in the design of a notation system is what to notate and what to omit, since the thing-in-itself, such as speech or dance or music, is too complex to be completely diagramed. A pitfall of scansion systems is the temptation to notate just a little more, in the quest to notate everything interesting. As you've acknowledged, that's not the job of a scansion; its role is simply (!) to diagram the relation between the complex speech rhythm of a line and the fairly simple metrical system that this line and all other lines "like" it embody.

For example, I think your marking of stress-levels is a step too far. All that matters to the meter is whether a syllable is stressed or not. (Stress in this sense is analogous to phonemes, which "digitize" the infinite range of mouth-sounds into a few dozen tokens.) The stress levels, if we say there are four, are either assigned arbitrarily by each person notating her or his own performance of the line—which is not the line itself—or they're assigned according to the rule-set worked out by Chomsky and Halle (unless we agree with later critics!). That set of rules is too complex for most readers of poetry to know or to care about. In most contexts, this defeats the purpose of scansion.

On the other hand, you think my inserting foot-divisions is a step too far because it reifies a dubious theoretical object. If all notional Classical feet were available to scan an English line, I'd agree that the system was a pointless fetishization of Greek vocabulary. But in fact only a few feet are necessary in scanning iambic lines in English: iamb, trochee, spondee, anapest, double iamb (rising Ionic if you like), and the occasional bare stress ("defective foot") at the start of the line or after caesura. (Anapestic meters require a couple more: bacchius, cretic.) I don't include the pyrrhic, for the following reason. Scansion diagrams the relation between concrete rhythm and abstract meter, and the point of doing this is that they jostle against each other expressively. When rhythm gets the momentary best of meter, the scansion shows the substitution of another foot (from that short list) for the iamb. When meter prevails over rhythm, we get what various writers call "promoted stress": what would otherwise look (for example) like a pyrrhic plus an iamb becomes two iambs; regular alternation reasserts itself. Since promotion of this kind (not exactly the same as what Attridge means by that term) is the one other thing needful to make the whole foot-scansion system at once adequate and streamlined, it's a shame there's no standard mark for it. I've used (/) for decades, but a three-glyph character is awkward. If we use % instead, then the scansion of Golding's line comes out this way, with promoted stresses in the third and fifth iambs:  ×  /  | ×  /|×   % |  ×  /  |   /    / | ×    % |× / The princely palace of the sun | stood gorgeous to behold Notice that from this angle foot divisions emerge as necessary indicators of the underlying regularity of what we all, including Attridge, continue to call "the iambic pentameter" (though obviously heptameter in this example).

Maybe my first paragraph means that the previous paragraph is pointless. But I thought it might be useful to indicate the theoretical position I'm coming from. Village Explainer (talk) 16:03, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Extrametrical syllables
Both positionally extrametrical syllables and elided syllables can be indicated with parentheses. [NOTE: There is a slight risk of confusion in using the same notation for these slightly different phenomena, but usually context will clarify which is meant, and I think it is best to keep symbols to a minimum.]

× / ×   /   ×  /   ×   /  (×)    ×    /(×) The under-hangman of his kingdom, | and hated

The line above contains 2 extrametrical syllables: the first allowed by an "epic caesura" (a special case in which marking a caesura in iambic pentameter can be useful), the second a feminine ending. The line below contains an elided syllable.

×  /     /     × × /(×)×    /     ×   / Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

[NOTE: Hey, here's a little trickster which includes all 3 aforementioned types of extrametricals, and incidentally exposes the weakness of marking each with the same scansion symbols:

× /   × /      ×   /(×)(×)     ×   /    ×  /  (×) To wage against mine enemies, | nor fear to lose it

As I scan this, the first (×) is elided, the second (×) allowed by an epic caesura, and the third (×) a feminine ending. But you wouldn't necessarily know that from the scansion.]

Virtual beats
It is often (not always) conceded that certain meters (specifically the wide family of 4-ictic Ballad meters, including Fourteeners, Poulter's measure, and Limericks, among others) allow some line-final ictic positions to be experienced silently. Depending on the context, it may not be important to scan these, in which case one merely scans the syllables present in the text. But if these "virtual beats" require notation, they can be marked with "[/]" thus:

× /    ×  / ×    / ×    / I taste a liquor never brewed, ×  /  ×      /     ×   /     [/] From tankards scooped in pearl; × /     ×  /   × /    ×   / Not all the vats upon the Rhine ×    /   ×  /  × /    [/] Yield such an alcohol!

[NOTE: I'm explicitly recommending brackets here: "[/]", rather than the parentheses above. This is to help emphasize how different the virtual beat is from the extrametrical syllable -- the opposite, in fact. Extrametrical syllables are positions that exist in the text, but do not count in the meter; virtual beats are positions that exist in the meter, but not in the text. I am aware that Derek Attridge (from whom I've taken the term "virtual beat") would also scan the lines above with "virtual offbeats" (e.g. "[× /]" at the end of lines 2 and 4. This may be significant for his system, but I think for Wikipedia it is counterproductive. Especially since virtual beats frequently pop up in contexts in which one could imagine arguments over whether one was failing to hear 0, 1 or 2 virtual offbeats!]

[NOTES] on more abstruse issues...

 * To scan dipodic verse properly, one would need a secondary ictus mark; this would presumably be a backslash (\). However, I'm not sure Wikipedia needs that level of detail; furthermore it could possibly be argued that metrically the secondary ictus is just an ictus (/) which is realized by a secondary stress so that the supposed need for a third symbol betrays a rhythmic, not metrical scansion.
 * I would argue that to discuss the kinds of metrical issues that most people want to discuss, a 2-line (meter + rhythm) scansion is required. I don't think any of the 3 main methods I've outlined in Scansion is really acceptable for Wikipedia because of their complexity, but a "modified Jespersen" method could be used, where the "slash & x" scansion appears on one line and 1 (light) through 4 (heavy) stress indicators appears on the second. This approximates the methods used by Otto Jespersen, James McAuley, and Timothy Steele.
 * Old English requires notation both for stress and quantity; but I think we can leave that alone for now.
 * Quantitative (e.g. Latin) and Melodic or pitch-based (e.g. Chinese) poetry obviously need their own notations. Quantitative already has established notation, which I believe is basically non-controversial. We could stipulate it here, or assume that anyone who bothers to scan Latin is likely to know what he or she is doing. I am not aware of a broadly-accepted notational system for pitch-based versification (possibly due merely to my own ignorance). The best I've seen is... er... mine, as displayed in Luc Bat for example. However, my example shows metrical structure without verse text; I believe that in Vietnamese written in Latin characters at least, scansion is hardly necessary since the vowels already display their pitches via diacritics.
 * Syllabic verse (real syllabic verse, e.g. French -- not modern English syllabic verse) will mostly be well-served by the "slash & x" notation (where in this case / = stressed and x = unstressed -- a rhythmic scansion). But a vital additional symbol for "syllablic position" (neither ictic nor nonictic, neither obligatorily stressed nor unstressed) will be needed. I'd suggest "s" for syllable, but other symbols are possible.
 * I'm happy to whip up scansion examples for Quantitative, Melodic, and Syllabic verse... but we should get someone with better knowledge involved if we go down any of these roads.

Addendum: proposed 2-line scansion for Wikipedia
Isn't one line enough? For metrical purposes, yes. But consider these lines:


 * When Ajax strives, some rock's vast weight to throw,
 * The line too labours, and the words move slow;

Many people will find it hard to stomach that not only are these lines metrically identical, but that they are also completely regular:

× / ×     /      ×    /      ×    /      ×    / When Ajax strives, some rock's vast weight to throw, × /    ×   / ×     /     ×  /     ×     / The line too labours, and the words move slow;

What of Pope's alleged sonic reproduction -- through over-weighting the line with heavy syllables -- of strain and toil? What of the reader's or listener's real experience of that strain? What is scansion good for, if it doesn't show this? Well, metrical scansion is not good for that. Its purpose is to analyze the meter of the line, and this is a binary proposition: all the syllables either function as a beat (ictic) or not (nonictic), and in verse like this (as indeed in most verse) the number of ictuses per line remains stable throughout the poem. There is no way metrically to notate the "extra stresses" that the reader legitimately experiences. These are an issue of verse rhythm. And while scanning only a verse's rhythm leads almost inevitably to a metrical boondoggle, scanning a verse's meter and rhythm can be very enlightening.

2 4 1     4      3    4      3    4      1    4   ×  / ×     /      ×    /      ×    /      ×    / When Ajax strives, some rock's vast weight to throw, 1 4    3   4 1     2     1  4     3     4   ×  /    ×   / ×     /     ×  /     ×     / The line too labours, and the words move slow;

Here, we've added a rhythmic scansion (1 = "lightest" and 4 = "heaviest" syllables). Now we can see 1) the variety of stress interrelationships that create the distinctive stress profile of the lines, 2) how these variously stressed syllables realize ictic and nonictic positions within the iambic pentameter, and 3) how, despite the preponderance of heavy stresses, these lines relate structurally to Pope's other heroic lines.

This "stress profile" scansion can be left to the scanner's ear; this will usually produce a reasonably useful rhythmic scansion. However a more objective method can be used (although probably no scansion can be 100% objective). [NOTE: Although I believe the following method is quite sound, I suspect it is simply too technical to function as a standard that is supposed to be usable by all Wikipedians.]

First, assign stress values according to the nature of the syllable:


 * {| class="wikitable"

! # !! Type !! Definition
 * 4 || Primary || The primarily stressed syllable in content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs).
 * 3 || Secondary || The secondarily stressed syllables of polysyllabic content words; the most strongly stressed syllable in polysyllabic function words (auxiliary verbs, conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions); subsidiary stress in compound words.
 * 2 || Unstressed || Unstressed syllables of polysyllabic words; monosyllabic function words.
 * }
 * 2 || Unstressed || Unstressed syllables of polysyllabic words; monosyllabic function words.
 * }
 * }

Then, subtract 1 if the syllable is dominated by a more strongly stressed neighboring syllable (a syllable can only be dominated once, i.e. never subtract 2). Domination can only happen when the 2 syllables in question are next to each other, and in the same word or in very closely-linked words: e.g. articles, prepositions, adjectives. If there is punctuation (other than a hyphen) between the syllables, or could possibly be punctuation between them, then no domination will occur. In the following examples, the underlined syllables are demoted by their more heavily stressed bold neighbors.


 * a lib er al --but-- a con serv a tive
 * in troub le --but-- in a jam
 * good job --but-- good in ten tions

If, as in the final case ("good job"), 2 equally-stressed syllables potentially dominate one another, generally the first of the 2 syllables should be dominated and have its stress number reduced.

A "1" may never fill an ictic (/) position; other than that, any number may realize either ictus or nonictus.