iambs
Unstressed-stressed units
Iambs are metrical units in poetry, each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one: da-DUM.
The word "today" is an iamb.
Five iambs in a row make iambic pentameter, the dominant rhythm of English verse from Shakespeare to Frost: But SOFT, what LIGHT through YON-der WIN-dow BREAKS.
Metered poetic passage
- meterDevice that measures usage
- rhythmPatterned stress and silence
- cadenceRhythmic pulse or pattern
- lineContinuous mark or queue
stanza · lyric · ode · elegy · ballad · sonnet · couplet · tetrameter
Without rhythmic emphasis
- stressedOverwhelmed by pressure
- trocheeStressed-then-unstressed foot
- anapestTrisyllabic metrical foot
- dactylFinger, toe, or verse foot
spondee · pyrrhic · foot · scansion · prosody · syllable · substitution · metrical
verse
Metered poetic passage
line · stanza · lyric · ode · elegy · ballad · sonnet · couplet · tetrameter · trimeter
unstressed
Without rhythmic emphasis
dactyl · spondee · pyrrhic · foot · scansion · prosody · syllable · substitution · metrical · beat
heartbeat
Rhythmic cardiac contraction
cadence · lilt · swing · regularity · pattern · beat · tempo · conversational · galloping · march
sonnet
Fourteen-line metered poem
- ShakespeareElizabethan dramatist and poet
- MiltonBaroque English verse master
- enjambmentUnpaused verse continuation
Marlowe · caesura · volta · couplet · quatrain · octave · sestet · unrhymed
- iambic pentameterUnstressed-stressed pattern, five feet
- iambic versePoetry with rising rhythm