Like modern poetry, classic Latin poetry also contains something called meter. Meter is the rhythmic structure of a line within a work of poetry, and the mechanism behind meter is the careful manipulation of foot. A foot varies differently depending on the poem, but normally is a combination of stressed and unstressed syllables. The reason why poets use these feet and meters is so that when the poems are read out loud, they could sound more pleasant to the human ear. Perhaps the most common form of meter is the iambic pentameter that famous English poet William Shakespeare was most well-known for. Consisting of 5 feet, with each foot containing of a unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, this type of meter is meant to mimic the beating of heart. In Latin poetry, there are usually two types of feet: a spondee or a dactyl.
A spondee consists of two long syllables next to each other, while a dactyl consists of a long syllable followed by two short ones. To perform scansion (that is, to figure out which syllable is stressed or unstressed) in Latin poetry, some rules can be followed.
To start with, we should always look for elisions. This the the omission of certain syllables in scansion. There are two rules to this. Firstly, a final syllable ending in a vowel may be omitted before a word beginning with a vowel or h; secondly, a final syllable ending in the letter -m may be omitted from the meter before a word beginning with a vowel.
Once we have identified all the elisions, we then use the double consonant rule. If a vowel is followed by 2 consonants, it is long. And if 2 vowels occur together in the same word next to each other, the first is always short. We also need to identify diphthongs- which is when vowels combine to form one long sound. For example, ae, oe, as, and eu all make one long sound.
In Latin poetry, there are two types of meters that are very common: a hexameter, which is often used in epic poetry, or pentameter, often used in love poems. A hexameter always end in a dactyl followed by a spondee, whereas the last 3 feet of a pentameter consists of two dactyls followed by one spondee.
In general, it is equally important to realize that the main way to perform scansion is always to read out the Latin and to “feel” which syllable is long or short, and to remember the rules in mind!!