Iambic pentameter?

Question

for school we have to write a two page description in iambic pentameter and im totally lost.. i do not understand it at all.. and too embarassed to ask anyoone for help b/c since its a n honors class everyone else finds it so easy and this is the first yr oof honors for me so im new to it. can anyone help me get started atleast with this so i can get the hang of how to write comfortably in IAMBIC PENTAMETER (copying the writings of chaucer and shakespear).. please HELP! b/c its due today and i have to do it b4 school starts.

Answer 1

being in an honors class, you should find it easy to LOOK for the answers you need, too...you're not expected to just KNOW them!!... look here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iambic_pentameter#Simple_example

use the line "To be or not to be, that is the question' to 'feel' perfect iambic pentameter.... then write what you feel... da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM, da-DUM..........you can do it!!.....

Answer 2

An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. We could write the rhythm like this:
da DUM

this means that the second part is said in a stressed way.

A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

We can notate this with a '˘' mark representing an unstressed syllable and a '/' mark representing a stressed syllable. In this notation a line of iambic pentameter would look like this:
˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ /

The following line from John Keats' ode To Autumn is a straightforward example:[2]

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

We can notate the scansion of this as follows:
˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ / ˘ /
To swell the gourd, and plump the ha- zel shells

We can mark the divisions between feet with a |, and the caesura (a pause) with a double vertical bar ||.


To swell | the gourd, || and plump | the ha- | zel shells

Answer 3

What is Iambic Pentameter?

http://www.tqnyc.org/NYC030240/iambic%20_pentameter.htm

*Definition: Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. It has an unrhymed line with 5 iambs or feet. Iambic means the stress is on the second syllable, an example is the word good-bye. Pentameter shows us that a line has 5 feet or clusters of two syllables adding up to 10 syllables a line. These feet are marked like this Hello/hello/hello/hello/hello.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iambic_pentameter

Iambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. It refers to a line consisting of five iambic feet. The word "pentameter" simply means that there are five feet in the line; iambic pentameter is a line comprising five iambs. The term originally applied to the quantitative meter of Classical Greek poetry, in which an iamb consisted of a short syllable followed by a long syllable.

Fun with Iambic Pentameter

http://www.sp.uconn.edu/~mwh95001/iambic.html

Meter is the organization of speech rhythms (verbal stresses) into regular patterns, in terms of both the arrangement of stresses and their frequency of repetition per line of verse.

http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/LTMeter.html

iambic pentameter (eye-AM-bik pen-TAM-uh-tuhr)
The most common meter in English verse. It consists of a line ten syllables long that is accented on every second beat (see blank verse). These lines in iambic pentameter are from The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare:

http://www.answers.com/topic/iambic-pentameter