I always found the problem with iambic pentameter is that it's not always clear if a syllable really is stressed or whether you are just imposing the stress to make it fit. In the example of "To be or not to be" we learn that "to" is an unstressed word, and then at 2:40 we're told that "to" is stressed. In the example "i am a pirate with a wooden leg" I would have naturally stressed the capitalised syllables "I am a PIrate with a WOODen LEG", possibly with the I unstressed.
Shakespeare varied his meter a lot. He'd sometimes swap the first iamb with a trochee and throw in other different types of feet to emphasize different parts of the poem and produce a more varied sound. Also, meter is often relative. A syllable/word can be unstressed in one line but stressed in another depending on the surrounding syllables. IN my HANDS i HELD a BOOK and BURNing IT was ALL it TOOK to SET the CROWD aFLAME The first 'it' is surrounded by softer syllables (was and ing), so it is stressed. 'Took' and 'all' are harder sounding making the second 'it' unstressed. Now remember that not all stressed syllables are created equal. Some are much heavier than others (burn vs it), and the context in which they appear can vary the amount of stress they are given. In addition to this, if a strong metrical pattern has been previously established in the poem we will subconsciously try and connect the words we read to that rhythm. This can cause somebody to read a syllable with more stress to fit a pattern, but it can also make it much more noticeable when the poem breaks the pattern. The key is just to approach this not as an exact science. There's a lot of variance to it.
@@bronzenrule I appreciate your explanation. Of course, I'm still not conversant, but it's so much cleared now. In your explanation, why not just be vigil of the meter and the stress will serendipitously fall exigent (in the mind of the reader)? In shaded arbor I sat in deep thought/Through the leaves sunlight strikes and I am taught.
It's also when I found out today that poetic meters have patterns like a drum beat would. Simply think the kick as an unstressed syllable, and the snare as a stressed syllable, and you've got a beat made from a foot. Damn, poetry _is_ music!
Now every time I tell a tale, to children yet unlearned, Iambic prose will surely build a healthy, lifelong interest. And interest in the works of him whose words spans age to age, shall yield for those young little minds a passion for the stage.
Why do people always quote "To be or not be..." when someone is holding a skull? If I recall correctly shouldn't that be the "Alas poor Yorick..." quote?
I personally like the scene and the quote being put together. One man alive; holding the skull, one man dead; the skull. "To be or not to be... That is the question." I don't know much about poetry, but that scene with that quote sure raises some philosophical thought material.
If any of you have trouble with the stressed and unstressed syllables. You can go to a dictionary like marriam webster and find the word in its syllables which should look like this: \ sək-ˈses \ and \ bi-ˈhīnd \ The ( ' ) part is placed right before the stressed syllable. On dictionary.com the stressed part is marked with a deeper and fatter color.
Poetry is one of my great weaknesses (the same way that math might be for others). This helps, but is still hard for me to understand. I'm just going to have to watch it again to get it down.
Iambic pentameter is very pliant, and accommodates an array of variations that go far beyond what is covered in this video. If you google 'versemeter' you will find my blog page.
You'll find if you read on of meters' truth/ of rythmic meaning found in Shakespeare's plays/ of sounding more poetic than uncouth/ and how to not be left here in a daze. Pentameter, Iambic, first of all/ is nought but how I'm writing this right now/ If conquering the meters, first to fall/ Pentameter, the first that you should know. If you must wonder as to what I did/ In upper writings, 'twas a visual rhyme/ Between them similarity is hid/ but see the word, of sound you must be rid. And as this is a sonnet, you should know/ See couplets? That means there's not far to go.
best explanation of this I've ever encountered. 2nd best? john barton of the RSC explained it on the ITV miniseries Playing Shakespeare -also available on RU-vid
The thing that bothers me is how many people completely misread Hamlet's famous "to be" speech. He is NOT suicidal (that is early on in the play) he is not questioning HIS existence, but rather marvelling how people find the strength to move on "to dream, to sleep; to sleep, to dream -ay, there is the rub" (working off memory, sorry if exact words are off). Basically he is saying that were it not for our hopes and dreams who wouldn't want to die. It's an incredibly powerful piece of writing that is sadly mis-interpreted.
Shakespeare’s poetry is not “iambic pentameter”; it is five-stress verse. Unstressed syllables can be few or several, like folk poetry. Please listen to his lines more carefully: scan “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” as iambic pentameter if you can. You can’t. But you can count five stresses (if you understand spondees (two stressed syllables in a row.) And if you listen to your heartbeat it does not go “lub-dub” it goes “dub.” The “lub” is the pause between beats your pulse counts only “dubs.” All this stuff about iambic pentameter in Shakespeare is borrowed balderdash.
"Although he was famous for his plays, Shakespeare was first and foremost a poet." This is incredibly untrue. His entire business was theatre. His job was writing, acting in, and helping to produce plays. Shakespeare never published any of his poetry or plays himself on the page, we think of him as a poet as we study him by reading but he was most certainly NOT a poet first and a playwright second.
Another reason Shakespeare gets maligned is because most of his work was plays, not novels. We read them as novels today, but in order to fully appreciate it, it has to be seen as a play.
This was great. English is my second language and learning this stuff specially without teacher during quarantine is kind of hard. I watched so many videos about iambic pentameter but non of them helped me like this. I totally understood. Thank you :)
"The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath borne most: we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long."
@@tinibari456 I guess I was actually crediting the writing of Shakespeare and not Numa. No wonder Numa seemed so gifted. Thanks for clarifying the actual writer. Keep rocking!
@@ADDIDASSSSSSSSSSSSSS Ha, it's been a while since I made that comment. But don't worry if you don't recognize Shakespeare right away! just read him and you'll learn to recognize his style.
So in poetry, we divide lines into 'feet'. These are groups of stressed and unstressed syllables, usually with 1 stressed and at least 1 unstressed syllable. There are lots of types, but the one Shakey boi used the most was the 'iamb', which is one unstressed and one stressed syllable (da-DUM). The 'pentameter' part just means there are 5 feet per line, or 5 iambs. Hope that helps!
I tried to make a poem based on that video. But I'm not a native speaker. O thee, who shine as bright as moon itself Just let my words reside inside your heart The sun will come to melt your wall of ice Then I sow seeds of love and wait, and wait Till we unite our soul with every rose Anyone could check the grammar for me please?
Hey, that's an amazing start! The fourth line, though, is not in iambic pentameter, as 'I' is an unstressed syllable and 'sow' is a stressed one. It should be the other way round. Just write it differently and it'll be one great read :)
I'm not surprised , it's worth remembering each language has several poetic meters and rhyming traditions (though some are borrowed from other cultures and/or adapted). But I agree the description of Shakespeare's use of iambic pentameter was well explained !
The stress is on I, pare, to, sum, and day. Single syllables can often be stressed variably and the rest of the poem's structure, and our expectations of the sonnet genre would guide us to read it that way. It also neatly shifts the focus to the "I" at the start. A point could be made to read the first foot as a trochee, but to continue the pattern would make the line clunky and awkward and sound like you were confused about whether you should compare thee to a summer's day. I understand your point, but formally it wouldn't make sense for Shakespeare to have meant the line not to be iambic.
Iambic pentameter is so pre-neuralink anachronism :P And now I have realized that Picard would add a rytm to a verbal reasoning of the Borg. Just imagine the spread of a pentameter through the universe: You will you will assimilated be :) Also Tomorrow and plus one day, and plus two days... minus equals one of twelfth - Borg rendition :)
