pentameters
Sonnet's rhythmic lines
Pentameters are lines of verse containing five metrical feet—typically iambic pentameter, the dominant rhythm of English poetry from Shakespeare to Milton to Frost.
The term usually appears in discussions of poetic form: She wrote her sonnets in strict pentameters.
In classical prosody, pentameter refers specifically to a different pattern used in elegiac couplets.
Verse rhythm type
- dactylicThree-beat poetic meter
- trochaicStressed-unstressed metrical pattern
- spondaicTwo stressed syllables
- anapesticMeter with galloping rhythm
stressed · unstressed · syllables · feet · scansion · rhythm · meter · beat
iambic
Verse rhythm type
- dactylicThree-beat poetic meter
- trochaicStressed-unstressed metrical pattern
- spondaicTwo stressed syllables
anapestic · stressed · unstressed · syllables · feet · scansion · rhythm · meter · beat · cadence
Shakespeare
Elizabethan dramatist and poet
- sonnetsFourteen-line rhymed poems
- epic poetryExtended narrative in verse
- HomerAncient Greek epic composer
Virgil · Milton · Paradise Lost · Iliad · Odyssey · Aeneid · classical · Greek · Latin · dramatic verse
scansion
Analyzing verse rhythm patterns
diagram · symbols · thesis · caesura · elision · syncopation · quantity · length · accent · pattern
- iambic pentameterUnstressed-stressed pattern, five feet