Poetic Data and the News in Poems: A *For Better for Verse* Memoir

Abstract

This essay introduces scholars of Victorian poetry to an open-access, on-line scansion tutorial developed at my initiative and maintained under my guidance by the Scholars' Lab at the University of Virginia. I explain what and whom it is for, how it works, and what sorts of issue arose during its development. I then go into the sort of issue that should matter most to journal readers, viz. freshly enabled understanding of the metrical structure of a major poem.