examples of iambic pentameter in sonnets shakespeare

Sometimes the rhythm isn’t quite so obvious. … The name is taken from the Italian sonetto, which means ‘a little sound or song.'” Poets like those below have been experimenting with the form for hundreds of years. One of the most famous examples of iambic pentameter is the opening passage of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean. The Academy of American Poets defines a sonnet as: “a fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, employing one of several rhyme schemes, and adhering to a tightly structured thematic organization. Rather, it is a standard literary convention that has been used by many writers before and after Shakespeare. In the first three sonnets, for example, we find only used where we might say peerless or preeminent, gaudy used to mean brilliantly fine, weed where we would say garment, glass where we would say mirror, and fond where we would say foolish.

Sonnets may well be the most studied and practiced poetic forms in the English language. Shakespeare will always feature prominently in any discussion of iambic pentameter because he used the form with great dexterity, especially in his sonnets, but he did not invent it.

Examples of iambic pentameter in sonnets shakespeare