What Is An Iambic Pentameter?

Iambic Pentameter is the rhythm and metre in which poets and playwrights wrote in Elizabethan England. It is a metre that Shakespeare uses.

Quite simply, it sounds like this:

dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM

It consists of a line of five iambic feet, ten syllables with five unstressed and five stressed syllables. It is the first and last sound we ever hear, it is the rhythm of the human heart beat. It is percussive and attractive to the ear and has an effect on the listener's central nervous system.

An Example of Pentameter from Shakespeare:

but SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS

The Iambic Pentameter with the seemingly difficult and encoded language is one of the things that puts off school children. But it is simple to learn and easy to speak once it comes alive for you.

Shakspeare also writes in prose, usually when showing a character of lower status.

The term iambic pentameter refers to a type of metre used in poetry. The word pentameter means that the line contains five feet in it. The word iambic is Greek and was originally used in classical Greek poetry as a quantitative measure. In classical Greek poetry an iamb was a short syllable followed by a long syllable.

The term iambic pentameter was then adopted into the English language, and used to describe the equivalent metre in English language poetry. In English poetry the iambic pentameter still refers to the syllables, but the syllables are stressed and then unstressed. There is an easy rhythm to the iambic pentameter when read aloud, and it is commonly used for romantic poetry as a result. One of the most famous romantic poets to use this form was John Donne.

Iambic pentameter is also used in free verse and heroic couplets. Other famous users of this form include Shakespeare and Milton. A myth surrounding iambic pentameter is that the syllables always have to be ten in length, and that the verse must consist only of iambs. This is in fact untrue, and some of the most excellent examples of the iambic pentameter metre play with the iambic structure.

Iambic pentameter is a form of language shakespeare used in his plays, it has five Iambic feet. An example would be "two households both alike in dignity" this iambic sentence is used in one of shakespeare's plays called 'Romeo And Juliet'.The tune of iambic sentences is dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM dee DUM.Each word in his sentences have these lines on-top of them _ or /.This .. _ means the word or if its a double syllable word the first section will have _ which means it is unstressed and if it has this / it means it is stressed.

It is a kind of meter used in poetry. It consists of a line of 5 iambic feet. An example is: "To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells" (by John Keats).

A phrase which indicates that one line is stressed alternating, without a line that is stressed

The particular rhythm that the words establish in a sentence (line)

Iamb:one unstressed syllable followed by stressed syllable.(contROL)
it's called also rising meter.
Iambic pentameter:a metrical line consists of five iambic feet.