Explanation of Iambic Pentameter
Post date: Jan 16, 2015 4:11:43 PM
iambic pentameter
in English verse meter, ten-syllable lines with alternating unstressed and stressed syllables, the most common poetic meter in English and a particular favorite of Elizabethan playwrights such as shakespeare : "To sleep: | perchance | to dream: | ay, there's | the rub" ( hamlet ).
It is as simple as a heartbeat
A heartbeat has a hard sound and a soft sound to make two beats
Hard sound = stressed syllable = male = /
Soft sound = unstressed syllable = female = u
Meter- a way of measurement
iamb- Is a unit of measurement in poetry that consists of one stressed syllable and one unstressed syllable / U
uni=one
bi=two
tri=three
quad= four
penta=five (pentagon)
A line of Shakespeare there are FIVE sets of iambs /U /U /U /U /U
/ U / U / U / U / U
"To sleep: | per-chance | to dream: | ay, there's | the rub" ( hamlet ).