Iambic Pentameter?

[Lindagerr]

These are some explanations from study resources I used for A&I lit. Sometimes reading the same info in several different ways makes something clearer.


Iambic pentameter A metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line. (An iamb, or iambic foot, consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.)

Good luck on the exam.


The Foot

The foot is the basic rhythmic unit into which a line of verse can be divided. When reciting verse, there usually is a slight pause between feet. When this pause is especially pronounced, it is called caesura. The process of analyzing the number and type of feet in a line is called scansion.

Some of the most common types of feet in English poetry are:

Iamb: An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable: today

Dactyl: A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables : difficult

Anapest: two unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable : it is time

Most English poetry has four or five feet in a line, but there may be as few as one or as many as eight.

Monometer: one foot
Dimeter: two feet
Pentameter: Five feet
Octameter : Eight feet

Accentual-syllabic meter is determined by the number and type of feet in a line of verse.

Iambic pentameter: Each line of verse has five feet(pentameter), each of which consist of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable (iamb). It is one of the most popular metrical schemes in English poetry.

Ballad : alternating tetrameter( four feet) and trimeter (three feet), usually iambic and rhyming. Ballad form is common in traditional folk poetry and song.