An example of iambic pentameter

Answer 1

Here's Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, one of his most famous:

1My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; 

2Coral is far more red than her lips' red; 

3If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; 

4If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. 

5I have seen roses damasked, red and white, 

6But no such roses see I in her cheeks; 

7And in some perfumes is there more delight 

8Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. 

9I love to hear her speak, yet well I know 

10That music hath a far more pleasing sound; 

11I grant I never saw a goddess go; 

12My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. 

13   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare 

14   As any she belied with false compare.

Shakespeare, like many poets, sometimes "cheated" a bit in his use of meter; however, the first line and several others scan perfectly as iambic pentameter.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

I've underlined the syllables that are emphasized in the normal reading of the line. An "iamb" is defined as a pair of syllables in which the first is unstressed and the second stressed. (ta-DUH) You can see the pattern repeated throughout the line. Pentameter simply means there are five of these iambic units (known as feet) in each line.

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