You may believe that iambic pentameter is a relic of a bygone era, but this is not the case. This pattern became known as “typically Italian.” Iambic Pentameter in our Lives In addition, they frequently used a pattern in which the fourth (usually accented) and fifth (typically unaccented) syllables were combined into a single word, in contrast to the Old French line, which required a stop after the fourth syllable. The tenth syllable of the line was emphasized in both Old French and Old Provençal, and feminine ends were popular, making the line eleven syllables.Īs most Italian words have feminine endings, authors like Giacomo da Lentini, Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante adopted this line, often using the eleven-syllable version (endecasillabo). However, the troubadours of Provence, particularly Cercamon, Bernart de Ventadorn, and Bertran de Born, used this line with more flexibility in the 12th century. After the fourth word, such Old French lines always had a caesura. It’s usually assumed that a line of this length, maybe in Alcmanian meter, inspired the ten-syllable line of some Old French chansons de geste like Roland’s Song. Latin poems have lines of ten syllables each. In the first portion, the iambs are great - think da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM - but there’s just one too many in the second part.

The whole quotation, “to BE, or NOT to BE, that IS the QUES-tion,” has eleven syllables, which is one too many for it to be classified as iambic pentameter. Take, for example, Hamlet’s famous remark “to BE, or NOT to BE.” Watch James Franco and Tommy Wiseau attempt to master syllabic emphasis.

Iambs are something we all understand intuitively, but they’re not always easy to express. Nowadays, we examine Shakespeare’s plays from the perspective of history, attempting to understand the complexities of his style. This rhythm was one of his favorite writing tools, and it was present in many of his best works. Metaphors, subtext, and great flow abound throughout his writing. There is a reason Shakespeare is regarded as the most excellent writer of all time by many.

Consider this: iambs have the same rhythm as a heartbeat – da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM - one unstressed, one stressed word.įor thousands of years, poets have employed iambic poetry to track the most fundamental of all rhythms: our heartbeat (in pairs of five). Its aim, as complicated as it may appear, is relatively straightforward. The flow provided by this iambic meter was a favorite of William Shakespeare’s in his plays and poems. The most well-known meter for iambic poetry is pentameter, but there are others: dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, and so on. An iambic pentameter is a rhythm form that uses unstressed and stressed syllables in five groups.

Iambic pentameter sonnet 116