Iambic Pentameter
A line of verse with five iambs, ten syllables in an unstressed-stressed pattern: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in it.
- Prose
- Is that light coming from the window over there?
- Iambic pentameter
- but SOFT, what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS?
In practice
Iambic pentameter is a line of verse made of five iambs. An iamb is a pair of syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed, as in "a-BOVE" or "the SEA." Five of them make a ten-syllable line with a rising rhythm: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is the textbook example.
It is the most common meter in English poetry because it sits close to the natural rhythm of English speech, which tends to alternate weak and strong syllables. Chaucer used it in the fourteenth century; Shakespeare wrote his sonnets and most of his plays in it; Milton's Paradise Lost, Wordsworth's The Prelude and Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" are written in it.
When the lines do not rhyme, iambic pentameter is called blank verse, the form of most of Shakespeare's dramatic speeches. When pairs of lines rhyme, they are heroic couplets, the form Alexander Pope used. The fourteen lines of a Shakespearean sonnet are iambic pentameter rhymed ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.
Iambic pentameter on screen
INT. COMMUNITY THEATER - BACKSTAGE - NIGHT
Opening night. THEO (17) paces in a paper crown, mouthing lines. His stage manager, IRIS (17), holds a clipboard.
THEO
I can't remember anything. Not one word.
Iris takes him by the shoulders and taps out the beats, one tap for every stress.
IRIS
Then don't remember. Feel it in the beat. If I can learn it, you can learn it too.
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Iris answers Theo's prose with two lines of iambic pentameter, ten syllables each with the stress on every second one. Few screenplays are written in verse, but a scene can borrow the rhythm: five even beats sound settled and sure, which is why the meter works for a character's steadying reply.
Iambic pentameter examples
Shakespeare, Sonnet 18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Ten syllables, with the stress on every even one: shall I com-PARE thee TO a SUM-mer's DAY. It is the standard example because it scans cleanly and still sounds like ordinary speech.
Romeo and Juliet: "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" Romeo speaks blank verse, the unrhymed iambic pentameter most of Shakespeare's characters use. Servants and clowns often speak prose, so the switch between the two tells the audience who is speaking and in what mood.
Hamlet: "To be, or not to be, that is the question." The line has eleven syllables and ends on an unstressed one, a variation called a feminine ending. Shakespeare used it to make a line sound unsettled, which suits a man who cannot decide.
John Milton, Paradise Lost: "Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit." Milton wrote his whole epic in blank verse, and in a note on the poem's verse he dismissed rhyme as "the invention of a barbarous age."
Robert Frost, "Mending Wall": "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." The line opens on a stressed syllable, a common substitution called a trochee, and still settles into the five-beat pattern, which shows how loosely a modern poet can use the meter.
How to scan iambic pentameter
Count the syllables. A regular line has ten. Eleven usually means a feminine ending, an extra unstressed syllable at the end, and nine can mean a headless line that drops the first unstressed syllable.
Mark the stresses by reading the line aloud in a natural voice and marking each syllable you lean on. Dictionary stress settles longer words, so com-PARE and SUM-mer are fixed; small words such as the, a, to and of are usually unstressed.
Divide the line into pairs, called feet, and check each one. An iamb is unstressed then stressed. A trochee, stressed then unstressed, often replaces the first foot, and a spondee, two stresses, adds weight. A line with a few substitutions is still iambic pentameter.
Listen for what the variations do. Poets break the pattern on purpose: an inverted first foot gives a line a strong start, and a run of stresses slows it down. In an analysis, the departures are usually more interesting than the lines that scan perfectly.
Why Shakespeare wrote in iambic pentameter
Blank verse was the standard form for serious drama on the Elizabethan stage when Shakespeare began writing. Christopher Marlowe had made it powerful in plays such as Tamburlaine, and audiences expected kings, lovers and villains to speak it. Its steady rhythm also helped actors learn long parts quickly and helped speech carry in a large open-air theater.
Shakespeare used the meter as a dramatic tool. Characters shift into prose for comedy, madness or private talk and back into verse for public or heightened moments. Two characters can share a single line of pentameter, one finishing the other's ten syllables, which shows on the page that they are in step. When a line breaks the pattern, actors read it as a cue about emotion.
Using iambic pentameter in modern writing
Few films are written in verse, but the rhythm still matters in dialogue. A line of about ten syllables with alternating stress sounds complete and confident, which is why it suits a closing line, a vow or an ultimatum. Writers who read their dialogue aloud often find their strongest lines fall into the pattern without being planned.
To write it on purpose, start with an ordinary sentence and adjust the word order and word choice until the stresses fall on the even syllables. Keep the vocabulary plain; twisted word order to force the meter is the most common sign of a beginner. Then vary it, because perfectly regular lines in a row sound mechanical.
Common questions
What is iambic pentameter?
A meter in which each line has five iambs, pairs of syllables with the stress on the second, for ten syllables in all: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM.
What is an example of iambic pentameter?
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" from Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, and "But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" from Romeo and Juliet. Both have ten syllables with the stress on the even ones.
Why did Shakespeare use iambic pentameter?
It was the standard verse of Elizabethan drama, close to the rhythm of English speech and easy for actors to memorize. Shakespeare also used shifts between verse and prose to show class, mood and status.
What is the difference between iambic pentameter and blank verse?
Blank verse is iambic pentameter that does not rhyme. All blank verse is iambic pentameter, but iambic pentameter can also rhyme, as it does in sonnets and heroic couplets.
How many syllables are in iambic pentameter?
Ten in a regular line, five unstressed and five stressed. A line with a feminine ending has eleven, and poets often vary the count slightly while keeping the five-beat rhythm.
Does iambic pentameter have to rhyme?
No. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is blank verse, the form of most of Shakespeare's plays and of Paradise Lost. Rhymed forms include the sonnet and the heroic couplet.
What does iambic pentameter sound like?
Like a heartbeat repeated five times: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. Read "If music be the food of love, play on" from Twelfth Night aloud and you hear the even stresses.