To understand the Iambic Pentameter, you first have to understand the “Iamb.” The Iamb is a beat where there is a short syllable and then a long syllable. An example is “toDAY.” An Iambic Pentameter is a set of five of these Iambs. It has a total of 10 syllables. These are commonly found in traditional English poetry and verse drama. Here are some great examples of Iambic Pentameters in the following words lists.
Example #1
Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
Example #2
That’s what people say, mmm hmm, that’s what people say, mmm hmm
I go on too many dates, but I can’t make ’em stay
At least that’s what people say mmm mmm, that’s what people say mmm mmm
It’s like I got this music in my mind, sayin’ it’s gonna be alright
And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off
Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break
And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake
Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
I shake it off, I shake it off…
Example #3
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Example #4
Keep getting the feeling you wanna leave this all behind
Thought we were going strong
I thought we were holding on
Aren’t we?
Now my heart’s breaking and I don’t know what to do
Thought we were going strong
Thought we were holding on
Aren’t we?
Example #5
Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland
In such an honor named. What’s more to do,
Which would be planted newly with the time,
As calling home our exiled friends abroad
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny;
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen…
So, thanks to all at once and to each one,
Whom we invite to see us crown’d at Scone.
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Example #6
One way or another, I’m gonna find ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna win ya
I’m gonna get ya, get ya ,get ya, get ya
One way or another, I’m gonna see ya
I’m gonna meet ya, meet ya, meet ya, meet ya
One day, maybe next week, I’m gonna meet ya
I’m gonna meet ya, I’ll meet ya…
Blondie, “One Way or Another”
Example #7
Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
Edna St. Vicent Millay, Love Is Not All (also known as Sonnet XXX)
Example #8
There’s a lady who’s sure
All that glitters is gold
And she’s buying a stairway to Heaven
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for
Oh oh oh oh and she’s buying a stairway to Heaven
Led Zeppelin, “Stairway to Heaven”
Example #9
As when of old some Orator renound
In Athens or free Rome, where Eloquence
Flourishd, since mute, to some great cause addrest,
Stood in himself collected, while each part,
Motion, each act won audience ere the tongue
Sometimes in highth began, as no delay
Of Preface brooking through his Zeal of Right.
So standing, moving, or to highth upgrown
The Tempter all impassiond thus began
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Example #10
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
Example #11
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.
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Example #12
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
John Donne, Holy Sonnets: Batter my heart, three-person’d God
Example #13
Robert Frost, Birches
Example #14
Seamus Heaney, Death of a Naturalist
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