Iambic pentameter facts for kids

Iambic pentameter is a special rhythm used in poetry. It's one of the most common rhythms you'll find in English poems and plays.

The name 'iambic pentameter' might sound tricky, but it comes from Greek words. Pentameter means "five measures," and iambic means "made of iambs."

In poetry, the rhythm of words in a line is measured in small groups of syllables called "feet." The word "iambic" tells us the type of foot used, which is called an iamb. An iamb is made of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The word "pentameter" means that a line has five of these "feet."

So, a line of iambic pentameter usually has ten syllables with five stresses. The stresses typically fall on the second, fourth, sixth, eighth, and tenth syllables. We can show this pattern with "x" for an unstressed syllable and "/" for a stressed syllable:

x / x / x / x / x /

How Poets Use Iambic Pentameter

In real poems, lines sometimes have an extra syllable at the end. Other times, they might be missing the first unstressed syllable. A line can be divided into five units, which are called "feet." The unit "x /" is known as an "iamb" or "iambic foot." Sometimes, poets change the pattern a little. For example, the first foot might be reversed: / x x / x / x / x /.

Blank Verse

When iambic pentameter does not rhyme, it is called blank verse. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey first brought blank verse into English poetry. Thomas Kyd used it in his play, The Spanish Tragedy.

Here is an example from 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.

Blank verse does not have rhymes. However, it often uses alliteration, which is when words close together start with the same sound. For example, in the lines above, you can hear "prime and pride."

William Shakespeare's plays are mostly written in blank verse. A famous example is the first line of Hamlet's speech:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Famous Examples

John Milton used blank verse in his epic poem, Paradise Lost. Many other poets, like Edwin Atherstone, John Fitchett, Alfred Tennyson, Robert Browning, and Matthew Arnold, also used it in their long poems. John Fitchett's King Alfred is one of the longest epic poems written in blank verse, with over 130,000 lines!

However, not all iambic pentameter rhymes. Alexander Pope wrote iambic pentameter with rhymes. When one line rhymes with the next, it is called a heroic couplet.

Dramatic monologues, which are poems where a single speaker talks to an imagined audience, are usually written in blank verse. Good examples include 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 also be put into stanzas. An example of a stanza is rhyme royal. This type of stanza has seven lines and follows an "ababbcc" rhyme scheme. Emma Lazarus used it in her poem Sympathy from the series 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 also used in English sonnets.

The rhythm of iambic pentameter is quite similar to the rhythm of everyday English speech. It is also common in German literature. Here is an example 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

• Joseph Berg Esenwein, Mary Eleanor Roberts, The Art of Versification, The Home Correspondence School, Springfield, 1920.

See also

In Spanish: Pentámetro yámbico para niños