To someone firt encountering the words of William Shakespeare the language may seem

strange but there is a secrete to appreciating it although he was famous for his plays
Shakespeare was first and foremost a poet one of the most important things in Shakespeares
language is bis uses of Stress not that kind of stress but the way we emphasize certain
syllables in words more than other were so sued to doing this that we way not notice it at first
but if you say the word slowly you can easily identify them PLAWRIGHT, COMPUTER,
TELEPHONE. poets are very aware of these stresses having long experimented with the
number and order of stressed and unstressed syllables and combined them in different ways
to create rhythm in their poems like songwriters poets often express their ideas through a
recognizable repetition of these rhythms or poetic meter and like music, poetry has its own
set of terms for describing this. In a line of verse a foot is certain number of stressed and
unstressed syllables forming a distinct unit, just as a musical measure consist of certain
number of beats, one line of verse is usually made up of several feet. For example a dactyl is a
metrical foot of three syllables with the first stressed ,and the second and third unstressed
dactyls can create lines that move swiftly and gather force as in Robert Brownings poem “the
lost leader”

JUST FOR A HANDFUL OF SILVER HE LEFT US

JUST FOR A RIB AND TO STICK IN HIS COAT

Another kind of foot is the two-syllable long trochee a stressed syllable followed by an
unstressed one. The trochees is there lines from SHKESPEARE’S “Macbeth” lend an ominous
and spooky tone to the witches’ chant. ´´ Double, double , toil and trouble fire burn and
cauldron bubble. But with Shakespeare it´s all about the iamb This two-syllable foot is like a
reverse trochee, so the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed, as in, “ TO BE ,
OR NOT TO BE´¨ Shakespeare´s favorite meter in particular. Was iambic pentameter, where
each line of verse is made up of five two-syllable iambs for total of ten syllables. And its used
for many of Shakespeare´s most famous lines: Shall I compare thee to summer´s day “ “ Arise
fair sun, and kill the envious moon.” Notice hpw the iambs cut across both punctuation and
word separation

Meter is all about sound, not spelling IAMBIC pentameter may sound technical, but there’s an
easy way to remember what it means. The word iamb is pronounced just like to phrase, “I am
“bic Now, let´s expand that to a sentence that just happens to be in iambic pentameter “ Iam
a pirate with a wooden leg” the pirate can only walk in iambs, a living reminder of
Shakespeare’s favorite mater. Iambic pentameter is when he takes ten steps our pirate friend
can even help us remember how to properly mark it if we image the footprints he leaves
walking along a deserted island beach: a curve for unstressed syllables and shoes outline for
stressed ones.

“if music be the food of love, play on” of course, most line of shakespeare´s plays are written
in regular prose but if you read carefully you´ll notice thet Shakespeare´s characters turn to
poetry and iambic pentameter in particular for many of the same reasons the we lokk poetry
in our own lives. Feeling passionate , introspective or momentous. Whether it´s Hamlet
pondering his existence or Romeo Prefessing his love , the characters switch to aimbic
pentameter when speaking about their emotions and their place in the world which leaves
just one last question

Its been said that iambic pentameter was easy for his actors to memorize and for the audience
to understand bueacuse its naturally sited to the English language , but there might be
another reason , the next time you´re in a heightened emotional situation like to ones that
make Shakerpeare´s characters burst into verse, put your hand over the left side of your chest.

That´s your heart beating in IAMBS DA DUHM.DA DUHM. DA DUHM.

Shakespeare´s most poetic lines don’t just talk about matters of the heart

They follow its rhythm