Drama Homework Help: Shakespear?

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Question:

1!. Find a example from a Shakespear play of an iambic pentameter

2!. Explain what an iambic pentameter isWww@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

An iambic pentameter is writing consisting of five parts per line, each part having one short or unstressed syllable and one long or stressed syllable!.

It sounds like dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM, dee DUM

There are many to chose from but two examples from Shakespeare's plays are from "Romeo and Juliet" “But soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks!?” Or "Richard III" “A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/ a horse!”' Www@QuestionHome@Com

ROMEO
[To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss!.

JULIET
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss!.

ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too!?

JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer!.

ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair!.

JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake!.

ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take!.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged!.

JULIET
Then have my lips the sin that they have took!.

ROMEO
Sin from thy lips!? O trespass sweetly urged!
Give me my sin again!.

JULIET
You kiss by the book!.

2!. Iambic pentameter is a type of meter that is used in poetry and drama!. It describes a particular rhythm that the words establish in each line!. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called 'feet'!. The word 'iambic' describes the type of foot that is used!. The word 'pentameter' indicates that a line has five of these 'feet'!.

In perfect iambic pentameter the rhythm of the words is da/DUM!. Like a heartbeatWww@QuestionHome@Com

You'll find iambic pentameter in all of Shakespeare's plays -- any of the speeches in verse: the ones where every line starts with a capital letter!. Most of the lines in these speeches have five "da-duh" beats in them!.
i!.e!. "O for a Muse of Fire that would ascend" at the start of Henry V!.

If you just read any of the poetic speeches out loud you'll hear this rhythm over and over!.Www@QuestionHome@Com