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Iambic pentameter (/ aɪ ˌ æ m b ɪ k p ɛ n ˈ t æ m ɪ t ər / eye-AM-bik pen-TAM-it-ər) is a type of metric line used in traditional English poetry and verse drama.The term describes the rhythm, or meter, established by the words in each line.
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
Milton's most notable works, including Paradise Lost, are written in blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter. He was not the first to use blank verse, which had been a mainstay of English drama since the 1561 play Gorboduc.
Fourteener (iambic heptameter): line consisting of 7 iambic feet (14 syllables) Galliambic verse; Iambic pentameter: line consisting of 5 iambic feet (10 syllables) Iambic tetrameter: line consisting of 4 iambic feet (8 syllables) Trochaic meter: any meter based on the trochee as its primary rhythmic unit. Trochaic tetrameter; Trochaic octameter
The most famous and widely used line of verse in English prosody is the iambic pentameter, [7] while one of the most common of traditional lines in surviving classical Latin and Greek prosody was the hexameter. [8] In modern Greek poetry hexameter was replaced by line of fifteen syllables. In French poetry alexandrine [9] is the most typical ...
An example of scansion over a quote from Alexander Pope. Scansion (/ ˈ s k æ n. ʃ ə n / SKAN-shən, rhymes with mansion; verb: to scan), or a system of scansion, is the method or practice of determining and (usually) graphically representing the metrical pattern of a line of verse.
Shakespeare's standard poetic form was blank verse, composed in iambic pentameter with clever use of puns and imagery. In practice, this meant that his verse was usually unrhymed and consisted of ten syllables to a line, spoken with a stress on every second syllable. The blank verse of his early plays is quite different from that of his later ones.
By convention, sonnets in English typically use iambic pentameter, while in the Romance languages, the hendecasyllable and Alexandrine are the most widely used meters. Sonnets of all types often make use of a volta , or "turn," a point in the poem at which an idea is turned on its head, a question is answered (or introduced), or the subject ...