Iambic Pentameter Explained 

That’s my pleasure. I’m very pleased that you have found it so helpful and thank you for letting me know.

I know how you feel. I always got As in english and poetry etc but never understood this concept. I always just had a bunch of people looking at me like I was dumb and clapping at me till they gave up on teaching me.

I swear, there are so many great teacher, but so many awful teachers who are spoiling the subject for their students. When I did engineering, my professor sucked at explaining Smith Chart but I watch a RU-vid video and I had the same comment! RU-vid University is awesome. I just wish they’d stop with the censorship of “offensive” comments that are meant to challenge views and let growth occur.

Oh! Lovely to know

Thank you. I’m so pleased that the video was helpful and thanks also for taking the time to let me know.

Hi

i refuse to believe they did

I believe part of it is because Shakespeare wrote/spoke in Early Modern English as opposed to our modern English. He also lived during the mid-end of the great vowel shift which basically just caused some things to rhyme differently. They also commonly used words that have fallen out of popular usage etc

How did a generation understand the likes of Motley Crue or what the word Google meant. Shakespeare wrote deeply rich and compelling literature laced with word play and flowing metaphors and imagery which actually changed the English language. P.S. Google just got lucky! :)

It was acted 😅 reading a dry text in an archaic dialect is much harder than seeing the actors on stage live interact with each other

Thank you: I'm glad it helped you.

That's great to hear!

Please can you help me to understand the class ..I didn't get it yet. Thank you

That's great to hear and thank you fore letting me know. I have just uploaded a second video on Iambic Pentameter. Here's the link if you are interested: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HpQeV_ip0G8.html

Thank you. Good idea. I will put poetic techniques on the list of videos I will write in the coming months.

Thank you. I'm very pleased that you found it useful.

You're very welcome! Thank you for letting me know.

Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say and I’m pleased to hear that you found it useful.

@@DrAidan Oh yeah no problem, keep up the good work!

Very glad to hear that.

I appreciate that! Thank you!

Thank you for your kind words and I’m very pleased that you found it helpful.

That's great to hear and thank you for letting me know.

I’m very pleased to hear that it was helpful and thank you for letting me know.

Thank you. I’m very pleased to hear that you liked it and thanks for letting me know.

Very glad to hear that - thanks for the kind words.

I'm very pleased to hear that it is helpful and thank you for letting me know.

I’m very pleased to hear that and thank you for letting me know.

Very glad to hear that!

No problem at all, I'm glad to hear it was helpful!

You're very welcome. Glad you liked it.

Glad it was helpful!

I’m very pleased to hear that and thank you for letting me know.

Glad it was helpful!

Thank you Lillian - I'm very glad to hear you found it useful.

Thank you: I'm very pleased you liked it.

Glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know.

I'm very pleased to hear that. Thank you for letting me know. I have just produced another video looking at one of the main variations used in iambic pentameter. Just click in this link if you are interested. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HpQeV_ip0G8.html

I’m glad to hear that it’s helpful. Thank you for your kind words and thank you for letting me know.

Very glad to hear that!

Great to hear that - thanks for letting me know.

Thank you! I have just uploaded a second video on Iambic Pentameter. Here's the link if you are interested: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HpQeV_ip0G8.html

Thank you, I appreciate that.

@@shsanj1973 thank you. I’m pleased it was useful.

Thank you. I’m very pleased to hear that you found it useful.

Thank you for your comments and thank you for sharing the video. I'm glad you found it useful.

No ones gives a shit Elizabeth.B

I’m very pleased that you found them helpful and thank you for letting me know.

No problem 👍

I’m glad to hear that it helped. Thank you for letting me know.

Thank you.

Thank you. Glad it was useful.

Thank you. I'm glad you liked it. I have just uploaded a second video on Iambic Pentameter. Here's the link if you are interested: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HpQeV_ip0G8.html

I’m glad you found it useful.

No problem. Glad you liked it.

That’s very kind of you to say; thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm pleased you enjoyed it.

Glad it helped!

Yeah me too ima fail :(

^^ me 3

same

No problem

Thank you - this video was made using VideoScribe.

get aired

get aired

Got it! Thx guys

Hadrien Nostrenoff that’s a good question. It is about the relative amount of emphasis you place on a syllable. With combinations like ‘a love’ or ‘to be’ you can hear there is more emphasis on the second word. It would sound odd to over-emphasise the first word. With a trochee it sounds natural to stress the first syllable more than the second. With the words ‘Now is’ you can hear that it sounds more natural to stress the word ‘Now’ more than the word ‘is’. It takes a bit of practice but eventually it will become clearer and clearer. Hope that’s helpful.

Thank you, so the natural emphasis of the word does play a part. I wasn't sure :)

Oh hey I’m not alone!

Happy to help!

Tom hopefully you go places, would love to hear your work 🤘🎭

Sike fuck u

@@DrAidan I've written several now, including tetrameter, common meter and several other styles, thank you again 🎭

@@user-gb6hh5hr6x thank you

Same😂

There is no real 'opposite', but we could - theoretically - think of prose as the 'opposite' of iambic pentameter because it doesn't have the clear structure of five iambs per line. Quite a lot of Hamlet is written in prose, for example. When Shakespeare uses prose it can indicate several things: it might be a character of a lower class speaking; or it might be a character speaking more spontaneously; or it might indicate moments when a character is experiencing deep emotions that he/she is struggling to deal with or to articulate. Hope that's useful.

@@DrAidan If an iamb is de-DUM, what is DE-dum?

@@giantsparkplug3462 Good question. Where greater stress is placed on the first syllable and less on the second syllable the metrical foot is called a Trochee (pronounced Troe-Key). Trochees normally appear at the beginning of an iambic pentameter line and add a degree of rhythmical variation: In the play Richard III, for example, the very first line is "Now is the winter of our discontent. As you say the first two words (the first metrical foot) you can hear that you would place more stress on the word "Now" than the word "is" - so that is a trochee and might be described as DUM-de. Hope that helps. Do send me another message if you have other questions about this.

Thanks for your question. An iamb consists of two syllables and the DE-DUM pattern describes the fact that there is more relative stress on the second of these two syllables in a standard iamb. So, for example, take the word ATTACK. As you say it you can hear there is less stress placed on the A and more on TTACK. It is similar with the word AGO or AGAINST. Now compare a word you used in your question the word - FIGURE. You can hear that there is more stress on FIG than on URE. Likewise the word BOATING - there's more stress on BOAT and less on ING. I hope that helps explain the pattern but do send me a note if you would like more examples.

It's a good question. In this period they admired writers who constructed lines for poetic effect. It is only later that people began to react against this and experiment with different forms.

Thank you for the suggestion.

@@DrAidan lol I'm not trying to be as crass but yeah it did sound like you emphasized the first syllable of the foot. No harm no foul, my students still got it

Thanks for mentioning this and thanks also for recommending the video to your students.

Good question. Pentameter because there are five feet in the line. There is also dimeter (two feet in the line), trimeter (three feet), tetrameter (four feet), hexameter (six feet) and heptameter (seven feet) amongst others.