Iambic pentameter

**Iambic pentameter** is a kind of verse. It is the most common kind of verse in English literature.

The two words seem difficult, because the words are Greek. _Pentameter_ means "consisting of five measures" and _iambic_ "consisting of iambs".

The rhythm which words make in the line is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet". The word "iambic" refers to the type of foot that is used, known as the _iamb_. This is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The word "pentameter" indicates that a line has five of these "feet".

In theory every line is composed of ten syllables and have five stresses. Stresses fall on the second, the fourth, the sixth, the eighth and the tenth syllable. This is marked with two signs. The sign "x" stands for a syllable with no stress, and the sign "/" stands for a syllable with stress. So a line of iambic pentameter is:

- x / x / x / x / x /

## Use in poetry

In real poems lines have often an extra syllable at the end and sometimes lack the first unaccented syllable. A line can be divided in five units that are called "feet". The unit x / is called an "iamb" or "iambic foot". Sometimes the pattern is changed. First foot can be reversed: / x x / x / x / x /.
When iambic pentameter is unrhymed it is called blank verse. Blank verse was introduced into English poetry by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Thomas Kyd used it in his _The Spanish Tragedy_.

- _When this eternal substance of my soul_
- _Did live imprison'd in my wanton flesh,_
- _Each in their function serving other's need,_
- _I was a courtier in the Spanish court:_
- _My name was Don Andrea; my descent,_
- _Though not ignoble, yet inferior far_
- _To gracious fortunes of my tender youth._
- _For there in prime and pride of all my years,_
- _By duteous service and deserving love,_
- _In secret I possess'd a worthy dame,_
- _Which hight sweet Bellimperia by name._

There are no rhymes in blank verse, but alliteration often occurs in it, for example "**pri**me and **pri**de".

William Shakespeare's dramas are written chiefly in blank verse. The first line of the famous Hamlet's monologue is an example:

- _To be, or not to be, that is the question:_

## Examples

John Milton used blank verse in Paradise Lost. Many other poets (for example Edwin Atherstone, John Fitchett, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning and Matthew Arnold employed it long poems. John Fitchett's _King Alfred_ is perhaps the longest epic poem written in blank verse. It consists of more than 130 000 lines. But Alexander Pope wrote iambic pentameter with rhymes. One line rhymes with the next. It is called heroic couplet.

Dramatic monologues are usually written in blank verse. Good examples are Tennyson's _St Simeon Stylites_ and _Ulysses_ or Browning's _The Ring and the Book_. Robert Frost wrote similar poems in the United States.
Lines of iambic pentameter can be set also into stanzas. An example of a stanza is rhyme royal that consists of seven lines and rhymes ababbcc. It was used by Emma Lazarus in the poem _Sympathy_ from the sequence _Epochs_.

- _It comes not in such wise as she had deemed,_
- _Else might she still have clung to her despair._
- _More tender, grateful than she could have dreamed,_
- _Fond hands passed pitying over brows and hair,_
- _And gentle words borne softly through the air,_
- _Calming her weary sense and wildered mind,_
- _By welcome, dear communion with her kind…._

Iambic pentameter is used also in English sonnets.

The rhythm of iambic pentameter is close to the rhythm of everyday English speech. Iambic pentameter is common in German literature, too. This example is from _The Flamingos_ by Rainer Maria Rilke:

- _In Spiegelbildern wie von Fragonard_
- _ist doch von ihrem Weiß und ihrer Röte_
- _nicht mehr gegeben, als dir einer böte,_
- _wenn er von seiner Freundin sagt: sie war_

## Bibliography

- Joseph Berg Esenwein, Mary Eleanor Roberts, _The Art of Versification_, The Home Correspondence School, Springfield, 1920.

## Other websites

- Understanding Iambic Pentameter; YouTube
- Introducing Iambic Pentameter; About.com