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The Poetry of Shakespeare

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

Prose

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

Blank Verse

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

Iambic Pentameter

Let's go backwards first and start with Pentameter. There are many types of poetic meter. Poetic meters are just repeating patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, and each cycle of the repetition is called a foot. Penta means five. So in this instance, Pentameter means that there will be five "feet" in each line.

Iambic is the type of pattern. Iambic is one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. So if we have Iambic Pentameter that means we have ten syllables that alternate unstressed, stressed.

Why does Shakespeare write like this? Well, first, it was just the thing to do to write in poetry form. There are things you can do with poetry that you can't with prose - but one reason he wrote in blank verse is because blank verse is the poetic form that most closely resembles the way the naturally speak. It's true. Trust me.

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Iambic Pentameter

Unstressed Stressed One Foot

u / u / u / u / u /

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

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Iambic Pentameter

But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief

That thou her maid art far more fair than she.

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

Rhymed Verse

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

Rhyme Scheme

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here!

Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,

So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies

Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

Holy Saint Francis! What a change is here! a

Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear, a

So soon forsaken? Young men's love then lies b

Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes. b

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The Poetry of Shakespeare

The Sonnet

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A Sonnet

Two households, both alike in dignity, a

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, b

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, a

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. b

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes c

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; d

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows c

Do with their death bury their parents' strife. d

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love, e

And the continuance of their parents' rage, f

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove, e

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage; f

The which if you with patient ears attend, g

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend. g