Iambic Pentameter & Blank Verse | Definitions & Examples

Iambic pentamer is a staple of English poetry and can be described as a resilient and versatile poetic form. So, exactly what is it? Iambic pentameter is a line of verse that is made up of ten syllables that are arranged in five iambs, each of which is defined by a pairing of an unstressed and stressed syllable. 

Iambic pentameter is one of the main elements of the sonnet, a fourteen-line poem written in a particular rhyme scheme. Here is an example from Shakespeare's “Sonnet 73” (published in 1609):

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

 When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

 Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

This rhythm has been described as a rising rhythm, which resembles the human heartbeat. It consists of one unstressed syllable, which is followed by an unstressed syllable to make a rhythm that resembles:

da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM

Iambic pentameter can take various forms and is a highly versatile device. It can be rhymed as we see in the sonnet. When it is not rhymed, as in the case of the plays of Shakespeare, it is called blank verse.  It can be used to write relatively short verse forms such as the fourteen-line sonnet or epics, such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost (published in 1667).

Portrait of William Shakespeare.

A brief history of iambic pentameter and blank verse

The term iambic pentameter derives from the Greek words iambos, which means metrical foot, and pentametros, which means “having five metrical feet.” Iambic pentameter was introduced in the English language by the medieval English poet Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century in poetic works such as the epic Troilus and Criseyde, an epic poem written around 1385 in Middle English:

Original Poem In Middle English	Modern Translation
The double sorwe of Troilus to tellen, That was the king Priamus sone of Troye, In lovinge, how his aventures fellen Fro wo to wele, and after out of joye, My purpos is, er that I parte fro ye. Thesiphone, thou help me for t'endite Thise woful vers, that wepen as I write!	Troilus’s double sorrow for to tell, he that was son of Priam King of Troy, and how, in loving, his adventures fell from grief to good, and after out of joy, my purpose is, before I make envoy. Tisiphone, do you help me, so I might pen these sad lines, that weep now as I write.
Source: Libraius	Source: Poetry in Translation.

English poets after Chaucer wrote in a variety of meters. However, in the sixteenth century, the Petrarchan sonnet came to be one of the more famous examples of verse forms that relied on iambic pentameter. The sonnet was borrowed from Italy and came into prominence after poets like Sir Thomas Wyatt translated sonnets by Petrarch from the Italian to English.

Sonnets are fourteen lines of iambic pentameter with a rhyming scheme that could either be the traditional Petrarchan scheme of ABBA AABBA CDCCDC/CDECDE or the Shakespearean scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The Shakespearean Sonnet came into being after Shakespeare wrote a catalog of up to 154 sonnets using this scheme, which was eventually named after him.

Here is an example of traditional Petrachan Sonnet by Sir Thomas Wyatt, "Whoso List to Hunt, I Know where is an Hind" (published in 1557). It uses a Petrarchan rhyming scheme that deviates from the classic pattern:

Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind,

But as for me, hélas, I may no more.

The vain travail hath wearied me so sore,

I am of them that farthest cometh behind.

Yet may I by no means my wearied mind

Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore

Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,

Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind.

Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt,

As well as I may spend his time in vain.

And graven with diamonds in letters plain

There is written, her fair neck round about:

Noli me tangere, for Caesar's I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

Blank verse is simply poetry written in iambic pentameter that doesn’t rhyme. William Shakespeare was responsible for popularizing it in his plays in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, it was Milton who made it into a popular form for writing epic poetry in Paradise Lost: 

He called so loud, that all the hollow Deep

Of Hell resounded. “Princes, Potentates,

Warriors, the Flowr of Heav'n, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits; or have ye chosen this place

After the toil of Battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find

To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heaven?”

Another popular form of iambic pentameter is the heroic couplet. It became popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It consists of pairs of lines in rhyming iambic pentameter. It was used quite prominently by the likes of Alexander Pope in the eighteenth century in works such as his translation of Homer and in his mock epic poem, The Rape of the Lock (published in 1712):

Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel

A well-bred lord t' assault a gentle belle?

O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,

Could make a gentle belle reject a lord?

In tasks so bold, can little men engage,

And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?

Iambic pentameter has dominated British poetry since the sixteenth century. This verse form remains popular to some extent. However, with the advent of modernist literature in the aftermath of World War I, free verse poetry has taken its place in terms of dominance. 

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Iambic pentameter in the modern era

Iambic pentameter remains recognized for its versatility, even in an era where free verse forms dominate. At the height of the modernist poetry movement when free verse gained dominance, modernist poets like Wallace Stevens continued to write in iambic pentameter, even while exploring modernist themes in poems like “Sunday Morning” (published in 1915): 

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

In "Sunday Morning," Stevens is using iambic pentameter, a traditional verse form, to do something quite modernist. He is questioning the role of traditional religion in modern life and makes the unique argument that traditional religion should be replaced with poetry. The poem is called "Sunday Morning" because the persona in the poem is spending a day at home instead of going to church, which sets the basis for Stevens' argument.

Iambic pentameter and blank verse can both accommodate traditional lyrical rhythms as well as the type of natural conversational cadence that is valued in free verse and modern poetry. A good example of this is W.B. Yeats’ “Among School Children” (published in 1928): 

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;

A kind old nun in a white hood replies;

The children learn to cipher and to sing,

To study reading-books and history,

To cut and sew, be neat in everything

In the best modern way—the children's eyes

In momentary wonder stare upon

A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

The regular rhyme scheme and meter add a certain level of lyricism to the verse. However, the content of the poem is surprisingly modern and commonplace. It is a “public man” being asked to visit a school and give a speech to school children. It satisfies the demands of modern poetry that calls for poetry to be expanded to include all experience, while using traditional rhyme and meter.  

Even postcolonial writers have repurposed the verse form to celebrate and promote their own native dialects. For example, the Jamaican poet Edward Baugh uses iambic pentameter and Jamaican dialect for humorous effect in “The Carpenter’s Complaint”: 

Now you think that is right, sah? Talk the truth.

The man was mi friend. I build it, I

Build the house that him live in; but now

That him dead, that mawga-foot bwoy, him son,

Come say, him want a nice job for the coffin,

So him give it to Mister Belnavis to make -

That big-belly crook who don't know him arse

From a chisel, but because him is big-shot, because

Him make big-shot coffin, fi-him coffin must better

Than mine! Bwoy it hot me, it hot me

Iambic pentameter remains attractive as it comes across as a natural verse form. Moreover, it provides the writer with a narrow and restricted format to hone their craft. With this type of verse form, a poet has the freedom to be both lyrical and conversational.

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Cite this EminentEdit article

Antoine, M. (2025, July 17). Iambic Pentameter & Blank Verse | Definitions & Examples. EminentEdit. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/iambic-pentameter