Iambic Pentameter: Definition, Examples and How to Scan a Line

Iambic pentameter is a line of poetry made of five iambs: ten syllables that alternate unstressed and stressed, so the line sounds like da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. Shakespeare used it in his sonnets and for most of the verse in his plays. Read aloud, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" sounds like this: shall I comPARE thee TO a SUMmer's DAY.

What is iambic pentameter?

The name has two parts:

• Iambic means the line is built from iambs. An iamb is a foot (a small unit of rhythm) of two syllables, one light and one stressed: da-DUM, as in "a-WAKE", "be-LIEVE" and "to-DAY".
• Pentameter means five feet per line. "Penta" is Greek for five, and "meter" means measure.

So the iambic pentameter definition is five da-DUM beats in a line, which makes ten syllables in its plain form. A stressed syllable is the one you say a little louder and longer: SUM-mer, com-PARE.

The Academy of American Poets traces the meter in English back to Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century. Shakespeare, Marlowe, Milton, Wordsworth and Keats all wrote some of their best-known work in it.

In the marked lines on this page, stressed syllables are in CAPITALS and light ones are in lowercase, so "I" is written "i" when it is not stressed. A bar ( | ) shows where one foot ends and the next begins.

How to scan iambic pentameter, step by step

Scanning a line (scansion) means marking its stressed syllables and dividing it into feet. Here is the method, using the first line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

1. Read the line aloud at normal speed. Say it like a sentence, not like a drumbeat.
2. Count the syllables. shall / I / com / pare / thee / to / a / sum / mer's / day = 10. Ten is the first sign of pentameter, though 11 or 9 can still fit (see the variations below).
3. Mark the stress in longer words. A dictionary shows the stressed syllable of any word: com-PARE, SUM-mer. These stresses never move, so they anchor the line.
4. Mark the short words. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs usually carry stress, like "day". Small words such as a, the, to, of and and, and pronouns like "thee", are usually light. Here "I" takes a beat because the question leans on it.
5. Divide the line into pairs and name each foot.
   shall I | com-PARE | thee TO | a SUM- | -mer's DAY
   Every pair goes da-DUM, so every foot is an iamb.
6. Count the feet. Five iambs make iambic pentameter.

Look at "to" in the third foot. It is a weak word, but it sits between the even lighter "thee" and "a", so it takes a light beat. Beats do not all weigh the same: a small word may lean a little, but if a line only works when you shout it, the line is out of meter.

Two other feet turn up inside iambic lines: the spondee (DUM-DUM) and the pyrrhic (da-da). One or two of them do not break the meter.

Try the method on two more lines

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
thou ART | more LOVE- | -ly AND | more TEM- | -per-ATE

In the second line of Sonnet 18, "temperate" has three syllables (TEM-per-ate), and its last one takes a light beat. Say it as "temp-rate" and the line comes up one syllable short.

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
my MIS- | -tress' EYES | are NOTH- | -ing LIKE | the SUN

The opening of Sonnet 130 is as regular as a line gets: every small word falls between the beats.

Iambic pentameter examples from Shakespeare and Marlowe

Shakespeare's sonnets

All but one of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets are in iambic pentameter. The exception is Sonnet 145, which uses four-beat lines ("Those lips that Love's own hand did make"). You can read several in full, with notes, in our sonnet examples.

Sonnet 73:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
that TIME | of YEAR | thou MAYST | in ME | be-HOLD

The Academy of American Poets uses this line as its example of the meter. All five feet are clean iambs.

Shakespeare's plays

In the plays, Shakespeare writes most verse speeches in unrhymed iambic pentameter and switches to prose for other scenes.

Richard III, Act 1, Scene 1:
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York,
made GLO- | -rious SUM- | -mer BY | this SON | of YORK

"Glorious" is squeezed into two syllables (GLOR-yus) so the second line keeps ten. The first line is scanned under trochaic inversion below.

Christopher Marlowe

Marlowe was writing for the London stage at the same time as the young Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson's poem in Shakespeare's First Folio (1623) remembers "Marlowe's mighty line".

Doctor Faustus (1604 text), from Faustus's speech to Helen of Troy:
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium—
was THIS | the FACE | that LAUNCH'D | a THOU- | -sand SHIPS
and BURNT | the TOP- | -less TOWERS | of IL- | -i-UM

The apostrophe in "launch'd" shows it has one syllable. "Towers" is also said as one syllable (TOWRS), and the end of "Ilium" takes a light beat.

Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1, Act 2, Scene 5:
Is it not passing brave to be a king,
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?
and RIDE | in TRI- | -umph THROUGH | per-SEP- | -o-LIS

Common variations: feminine endings, trochaic inversion and headless lines

A line that never changed would sound like a metronome, so poets keep the five-beat frame and bend it in a few standard ways.

Feminine ending: one extra light syllable at the end

A feminine ending adds an unstressed syllable after the fifth beat, so the line has 11 syllables. Macbeth's best-known speech starts with one (Act 5, Scene 5):

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
to-MOR- | -row, AND | to-MOR- | -row, AND | to-MOR- | -row

The last "-row" falls after the final beat, so the line trails off. Keats opens Endymion (1818) with two feminine endings in a row, and they rhyme:

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
a THING | of BEAU- | -ty IS | a JOY | for EV- | -er

Trochaic inversion: DUM-da at the start

A trochee is the reverse of an iamb: DUM-da. Swapping the first foot for a trochee is the most common variation, and it puts a punch on the opening word:

Now is the winter of our discontent
NOW is | the WIN- | -ter OF | our DIS- | -con-TENT

The second line of Macbeth's speech does the same with "Creeps":

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
CREEPS in | this PET- | -ty PACE | from DAY | to DAY

After the first foot, both lines go straight back to da-DUM. Inversions also turn up after a pause in mid-line, but rarely in the last foot.

Headless line: the first light syllable is missing

A headless (or acephalous) line drops the opening unstressed syllable, so it has nine syllables and starts on a beat. Chaucer uses one in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, about a poor student who would rather own books than fine robes:

Twenty bokes, clad in blak or reed,
TWEN- | -ty BO- | -kes, CLAD | in BLAK | or REED

In Chaucer's English, "bokes" (books) has two syllables, so the line has nine syllables and five beats. Here is an original headless line written for this guide:

Stop and listen to the falling snow.
STOP | and LIS- | -ten TO | the FALL- | -ing SNOW

Iambic pentameter compared with other meters

A meter is named by its foot and by the number of feet in a line:

Meter	Pattern	Example
Iambic pentameter	da-DUM x5 (10 syllables)	"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (Shakespeare, Sonnet 18)
Iambic tetrameter	da-DUM x4 (8 syllables)	"Come live with me and be my love," (Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love")
Iambic hexameter (alexandrine)	da-DUM x6 (12 syllables)	"That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along." (Pope, An Essay on Criticism)
Trochaic tetrameter	DUM-da x4	"Double, double, toil and trouble;" (Shakespeare, Macbeth, the witches)
Anapestic tetrameter	da-da-DUM x4	"'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house" ("A Visit from St. Nicholas")
Dactylic hexameter	DUM-da-da x6 (last foot shorter)	"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks," (Longfellow, Evangeline)

Pope's alexandrine comes straight after the line "A needless Alexandrine ends the song", and its heavy words ("drags its slow length") make it drag like the snake it describes. For the bounce of anapests, read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

To tell meters apart, count the beats, then listen to how the line begins. Iambs and anapests start light and rise to the beat. Trochees and dactyls start on the beat and fall away.

Iambic pentameter vs blank verse

Iambic pentameter is a meter. Blank verse is a form: unrhymed iambic pentameter. So all blank verse is in iambic pentameter, but iambic pentameter can also rhyme.

Form	Meter	Rhyme	Examples
Blank verse	Iambic pentameter	None	The verse in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare's plays; Milton's Paradise Lost (1667)
Heroic couplets	Iambic pentameter	Rhyming pairs: AA BB CC	Keats's Endymion; Pope's An Essay on Criticism
Shakespearean sonnet	Iambic pentameter	ABAB CDCD EFEF GG	Sonnets 18, 73 and 130
Free verse	No set meter	None, or only now and then	Walt Whitman's long lines

Unrhymed iambic pentameter has its own guide, the blank verse poem, with ten famous examples. Rhymed pairs are covered in our page on couplets, the sonnet is one of several types of sonnet, and poetry with no regular beat is free verse.

Why poets use iambic pentameter

• It sounds like speech. Many English words and phrases already go da-DUM (a-LONE, to-DAY, the DOOR), so even an everyday sentence can fall into it: i THINK | i LEFT | my KEYS | be-SIDE | the DOOR.
• It is a good length. Five beats hold a full thought, such as Shakespeare's whole question about the summer's day, without running out of breath.
• Changes stand out. Because the ear expects da-DUM, a break such as the stressed "Now" that opens Richard III gets noticed.

How to write in iambic pentameter

1. Start with a plain sentence you might say, and speak it before you write it.
2. Open on a light syllable. Words like "the", "a", "and", "I" and "when" set up the da-DUM.
3. Put your important words on the beats: syllables 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10.
4. Tap and count. You want five taps and about ten syllables.
5. Fix lines with small swaps. Add or drop a "the", or trade a word for one with a different stress, such as "happy" (HAP-py) for "content" (con-TENT).
6. Decide on rhyme. Leave the lines unrhymed for blank verse, or follow a pattern from our guide to rhyme scheme. Fourteen lines rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG make a sonnet, and our guide on how to write a sonnet takes it from there.

Here is a four-line poem written for this guide, in iambic pentameter rhyming ABAB:

Before the Alarm

The room is gray. The heating clicks and hums.
Somewhere a neighbor's engine coughs and stalls,
and I lie warm and listen. Morning comes
in slowly, like the light along the walls.

Line 2 opens with a trochaic inversion: SOME-where | a NEIGH- | -bor's EN- | -gine COUGHS | and STALLS. The sentence in line 3 runs on into line 4 ("Morning comes / in slowly"), so the poem does not stop dead at every line end.

Write a sonnet in iambic pentameter, free

Common mistakes

• Counting syllables instead of stresses. "Rabbits in the garden eat the lettuce" has ten syllables but goes DUM-da (RAB-bits IN the GAR-den). Add one word, "The rabbits in the garden eat the lettuce", and it becomes iambic with a feminine ending.
• Forcing a word's stress. In "The guitar was against the kitchen wall" the beat lands on GUI-, but we say gui-TAR. Rewrite so the word fits: my OLD | gui-TAR | was LEAN- | -ing ON | the WALL.
• Padding and twisting word order. "The moon so bright upon the sea did shine" keeps the meter but sounds like no one talking. "The moon was shining brightly on the sea" keeps it and sounds natural.
• Treating every variation as an error. A trochee at the start or an extra syllable at the end is normal. A line with four or six beats, though, is a different meter.

Practice exercise

1. Which line is written in iambic pentameter?

1. The kettle sings, the window fogs with steam.
2. The kettle is singing away on the stove.
3. The kettle sings, the window fogs.
4. Kettle singing, window steaming.

2. Scan this line, the last line of John Milton's sonnet "When I Consider How My Light Is Spent": "They also serve who only stand and wait."

3. Write four lines about your morning. Give each line five da-DUM beats and mark the stresses in capitals. Rhyme them ABAB to make a four-line stanza (a quatrain), or leave them unrhymed as blank verse.

Answers

• Question 1: line 1, the KET- | -tle SINGS, | the WIN- | -dow FOGS | with STEAM. Line 2 has four beats in mostly da-da-DUM feet (anapestic tetrameter), line 3 has four iambs (iambic tetrameter) and line 4 has four trochees (trochaic tetrameter).
• Question 2: they AL- | -so SERVE | who ON- | -ly STAND | and WAIT: five iambs, each beat on an important word.
• Question 3: read each line aloud and tap. Five taps, each after a light syllable, means you have it.

Draft a poem, then scan it line by line

FAQs

What part of speech is often stressed in iambic pentameter?

Content words: nouns, main verbs, adjectives and adverbs usually take the beats, while small words such as "a", "the", "of", "to" and "and" fall between them. In Milton's "They also serve who only stand and wait", the beats land on "also", "serve", "only", "stand" and "wait".

Is Sonnet 29 written in iambic pentameter?

Yes. Each line has five beats and about ten syllables, with the stress mostly on every second syllable. Line 2 is regular: i ALL | a-LONE | be-WEEP | my OUT- | -cast STATE. The sonnet also shows the usual variations: line 5 opens with a trochee ("Wishing"), "heaven" in line 3 is said as one syllable, and lines 9 and 11 have feminine endings ("despising", "arising").

Is there an iambic pentameter checker?

Your own voice is the best one. Read the line aloud, tap the beats, count the syllables and check the stress of long words in a dictionary. Automatic checkers can count syllables, but stress depends on meaning, so a person still has to listen. If you draft lines with our sonnet generator, scan each one with the steps above before you keep it.

Does iambic pentameter have to rhyme?

No. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is blank verse, the verse of Shakespeare's and Marlowe's plays and Milton's Paradise Lost. Rhymed iambic pentameter is used in sonnets and heroic couplets.