iambic
Unstressed then stressed
Iambic describes a rhythmic pattern in poetry where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable: da-DUM.
Most English verse uses iambic meter because it mirrors natural speech patterns.
Iambic pentameter—five iambic units per line—is the backbone of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
Leg's lowest part
- stressPressure, mental or vocal
- unstressRemove vocal emphasis
- syllableUnit of pronunciation
- dimeterTwo-foot poetic line
trimeter · tetrameter · hexameter · scansion · prosody · metrical · accent · duple
Metered poetic passage
ballad · elegy · couplet · quatrain · enjambment · imagery · alliteration · assonance
Rhythmic pulse or pattern
- pulseArterial blood throb
- flowUnbroken forward movement
- tempoRate of musical performance
- swingSuspended recreational seat
lilt · syncopation · pacing · musicality · rising · alternation · regularity · heartbeat
foot
Leg's lowest part
dimeter · trimeter · tetrameter · hexameter · scansion · prosody · metrical · accent · duple · line
verse
Metered poetic passage
ode · ballad · elegy · couplet · quatrain · enjambment · imagery · alliteration · assonance · volta
cadence
Rhythmic pulse or pattern
swing · lilt · syncopation · pacing · musicality · rising · alternation · regularity · heartbeat · stride
Shakespeare
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- sonnetFourteen-line metered poem
- blank verseUnrhymed iambic pentameter
- heroicExceptionally brave and noble
Elizabethan · dramatic · soliloquy · monologue · couplet · heartbeat · Marlowe · Milton · tragedy · comedy
- poetrypoem, poems, poetry, verse, verses
- poetry termspoetry, rhyme, verse, rhythm, meter
- Classical PoetryHomer, epic poetry, Virgil, Ovid, Horace
- Early English VerseChaucer, Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare, Donne
- poeticsrhyme, versification, poetic form, stanza, meter
- rhythm termsrhythm, beat, tempo, meter, cadence
- iambic pentameterUnstressed-stressed pattern, five feet
- iambic versePoetry with rising rhythm