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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.
Generative metrics [a] is the collective term for three distinct theories of verse structure (focusing on the English iambic pentameter) advanced between 1966 and 1977.. Inspired largely by the example of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures (1957) and Chomsky and Morris Halle's The Sound Pattern of English (1968), [1] these theories aim principally at the formulation of explicit linguistic ...
Furthermore, iambic pentameter (despite its name) may be better described as a series of 10 positions than of 5 feet, especially since the sequence ××// may be interpreted as the swapping of ictic and non-ictic positions across feet, suggesting that if feet constitute any kind of boundary at all, it is a porous one indeed.
In some kinds of metre, such as the Greek iambic trimeter, two feet are combined into a larger unit called a metron (pl. metra) or dipody. The foot is a purely metrical unit; there is no inherent relation to a word or phrase as a unit of meaning or syntax , though the interplay between these is an aspect of the poet's skill and artistry.
Lines of poetry made up predominantly of iambs are referred to as iambics or as iambic verse, which is by far the most commonly used metrical verse in English. Its most important form is the 10-syllable iambic pentameter, either rhymed (as in heroic couplets and sonnets) or unrhymed (in blank verse). [35] iambic pentameter idiom idyll imagery ...
For example, if the feet are iambs, and if there are five feet to a line, then it is called an iambic pentameter. [1] If the feet are primarily dactyls and there are six to a line, then it is a dactylic hexameter. [1] In classical Greek and Latin, however, the name "iambic trimeter" refers to a line with six iambic feet.
Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, usually in iambic pentameter. It has been described as "probably the most common and influential form that English poetry has taken since the 16th century", [ 1 ] and Paul Fussell has estimated that "about three quarters of all English poetry is in blank verse".
Like many of the others in the sequence, it is written in a type of metre called iambic pentameter, which is based on five pairs of metrically weak/strong syllabic positions per line. Typically English sonnets present a problem or argument in the quatrains, and a resolution in the final couplet. [2]