Sir, ’twas not Her husband’s presence only, called that spot Example #3. I call That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf’s hands Worked busil y a day, and there she stands… And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst, How such a glance came there so, not the first Are you to turn and ask thus. That my last Duchess painted on the wall, Look ing as if she were a live. Shall I com pare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Example #2.

Check out the examples below: Example #1. Shakespeare’s sonnets are known for using iambic pentameter. Examples of Iambic Pentameter in Literature

unstressed-stressed pattern? We put the stressed syllables in bold:īased on these two checks, the above line is in iambic pentameter.

checking that the stress of the words are in a pattern of unstressed-stressed all throughout the line.įor example, check this line from “Twelfth Night” by William Shakespeare:.

checking the number of syllables in the line (is it ten?).

Through this definition, you can tell if something is in iambic pentameter by doing two things: How Do You Know If Something Is in Iambic Pentameter? – To day in London, Kay re leased her cat. With each foot containing two syllables, this means that five metrical feet equals ten syllables in total. It can also be two words with the first word being an unstressed word, such as an article: In the examples below, we have put the stressed syllable in bold: First, let’s look at the “iamb” part of the term.Įxamples of an unstressed (short) syllable, followed by a stressed (long) syllable would be two-syllable words that have their stress on the second syllable. Let’s expand the two terms to help you understand them better. “Penta” means “five,” and “meter” means “to measure.” Pentameter therefore means five measures of iambs, or five feet. The term “iamb” refers to a foot, which is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In poetry, iambic pentameter refers to a line with five metrical feet.

The meter refers to the number of syllables in a line of poetry, while the rhyme scheme, or rhyming pattern, indicates which lines in the poem rhyme.

Structures for poems include a set meter and rhyme scheme. When you write a poem, you can choose whether you want to follow a set structure or do free verse. If you are studying Shakespeare or even poetry in general, you will most likely hear the term “iambic pentameter.” This refers to a type of structure for poems.

Shakespeare iambic pentameter sonnets