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Pentameter

Meter
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A metrical line containing five feet (e.g., iambic pentameter), the most common line length in English blank and heroic verse.

Explore this topic in depth (2)

How to Scan a Poem — Scansion is the practice of listening closely to a poem’s rhythm and marking its pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. It is not a way of forcing every line into a formula, but a method for hearing how regularity, variation and natural speech work together.

Metre and Rhythm — Metre gives poetry an underlying pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables; rhythm is the living sound that results when a person reads it. Learn to hear the beat before naming it, and to notice how poets use regularity and variation to make language move.

Detailed Definition
Pentameter refers to a metrical line containing five feet, most commonly iambic pentameter in English poetry—a ten-syllable line with alternating unstressed and stressed syllables (da-DUM x5)—used by Shakespeare, Milton, and countless others for its natural speech-like rhythm and structural versatility.
Example
Example in poetry:
Pentameter: Shakespeare’s sonnets (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”); Milton’s “Paradise Lost” (“Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit”); modern example: Robert Frost’s “Birches” (“When I see birches bend to left and right”); iambic pentameter dominates English poetry for its speech-like rhythm; it’s flexible for narrative, lyric, and drama; this meter balances regularity and variation.
Additional Notes
Pentameter: A line of verse with five metrical feet; most commonly iambic pentameter in English; provides rhythmic flexibility while maintaining formal structure.
Also Known As
Five-foot line Five-measure verse Pentametric line Five-beat measure
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