Why this project?
Every poet who writes in meter knows that checking your scansion by hand is tedious — counting syllables, marking stresses, grouping feet, then eyeballing the pattern. Existing scansion tools either give a bare syllable count or just tell you "this is iambic pentameter" without showing the work. Verse Forge was built to make the full scansion process visible and interactive: you see exactly which syllables are stressed, how the feet are grouped, and where a line deviates from the expected meter.
What is it?
Verse Forge is an interactive scansion studio. Paste any English poem and it immediately:
- Breaks each line into syllables using a stress dictionary built from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (92,000+ words)
- Marks each syllable as stressed (˘) or unstressed (∪)
- Groups syllables into metrical feet (iamb, trochee, anapest, or dactyl)
- Renders a visual rhythm strip — filled pulses for stressed syllables, open pulses for unstressed
- Detects the dominant meter across all lines and flags irregular feet
Switch foot types to see how the same line reads under different metrical assumptions. Load built-in examples (Shakespeare, Dickinson, Blake) or paste your own verse.
How does it work?
The core engine looks up each word in a syllable-stress table derived from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Each entry maps a word to an array of stress levels: 1 = primary stress, 2 = secondary, 0 = unstressed. For words not in the dictionary, a heuristic fallback counts vowel groups and applies English stress rules (first-syllable default for two-syllable nouns, penultimate for many others).
Foot grouping is a greedy left-to-right scan: given a foot pattern (e.g., iamb = ∪˘), the engine attempts to match the pattern against the stress sequence, allowing secondary stress to count as stressed. When no foot type is selected (Auto mode), all four foot types are scored per line and the best fit wins.
The rhythm strip is rendered with pure CSS — no canvas — using flexbox rows of pulse elements sized and colored by stress level.
How to use it
- Paste your poem into the text area (or click Load Example for a built-in sample)
- Choose a foot type from the control bar, or leave it on Auto to let Verse Forge detect the meter
- Toggle between Rhythm + Scansion, Rhythm Only, and Scansion Only views
- Read the summary cards at the bottom for the dominant meter, syllable counts, and irregularity notes
- Hover over any stressed syllable to see its stress level (primary vs secondary)
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