Or the easy way, the iamb sounds like dee-DUM! And words can change stress based on whether they’re nouns or verbs, or whether they’re important in a sentence. It can have three or more! But for the “iamb” part of iambic pentameter, the most important thing is that there is always one unstressed syllable and then one stressed. Of course, the word doesn’t have to have two syllables in poetry. If you tried to say it the other way around, it would sound quite silly. So “above” becomes a BOVE, “describe” becomes des CRIBE “respect” is res PECT. The three words I used all have two syllables (a-bove, des-cribe, res-pect) and we say the second syllable louder than the first. I’ll put the stressed syllable of the sentence or phrase in bold. An iamb has one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed. That’s just how we talk! And metre takes advantage of that. In English, there are always parts of a word that we stress (or say louder) than others. The “iamb” part refers to where the stressed syllable is.
This is where you’ll have most of the trouble. So let’s look at the first word in iambic pentameter. Until then, though, let’s split the term into its two words and talk about them one by one. In fact, I spent about two years of my school life able to tell iambic pentameter before I even knew about any other kind of metre! But they do exist and they are useful to know, so I will go into them in a future post. Shakespeare writes his plays in mostly verse, after all! All metre is about stresses and syllables, though, and this isn’t the only kind of metre we’ve got! It is, however, the first one most people learn about. In short, Iambic Pentameter is all about how many syllables and stresses we have in a line of a poem. You’re going to be doing some counting! So stick around and let me help you! Soon enough, you’ll be able to amaze your teacher with how much you know and sail through your exams with ease! What is Iambic Pentameter? To get the hang of it, you’ll need a pencil, a Shakespeare play or poem and your fingers. Practice, reading aloud and lines all over your work. So what exactly is iambic pentameter and how do you spot it? Well, it’s all about practice, really.
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