Iambic pentameter

A poetic meter made of five iambs, each typically pairing an unstressed syllable with a stressed one. Its ten-syllable pattern allows substitutions and variations in actual verse.

Iamb: A metrical foot consisting typically of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Five repetitions of this rising foot form the meter’s basic pattern.
Shakespearean sonnet: A fourteen-line English sonnet with three quatrains and a closing couplet, usually written in iambic pentameter. Its regular line pattern makes the meter especially easy to hear.
Geoffrey Chaucer: A medieval English poet whose works include The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde. His verse helped establish five-beat lines in English poetry.
Trochaic tetrameter: A meter typically consisting of four trochees, each with a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Its falling beat and four-foot line contrast with pentameter’s rising five-foot pattern.
Scansion: The analysis of a poem’s metrical pattern by marking syllables, stresses, and feet. Scansion makes the line’s five-foot rhythm visible.
Blank verse: Unrhymed verse written primarily in iambic pentameter. It uses the meter as a flexible foundation for drama and long poems.
English Renaissance: A period of cultural and intellectual change in England, conventionally dated from the late fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries. The meter became a dominant form for English drama and poetry during this period.
Iambic tetrameter: A poetic meter typically consisting of four iambs per line. It shares the iamb’s rising rhythm but has one fewer foot.
Metrical substitution: The replacement of an expected metrical foot with a different foot in a verse line. Substitutions explain why an iambic line can depart from its regular beat.
Paradise Lost: John Milton’s epic poem, first published in 1667, recounting the Fall of humankind. Milton’s unrhymed pentameter demonstrates the meter’s capacity for sustained epic speech.

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