It is very difficult to identify iambic rhythm in songs as the stress and rhythm are altered by the singer to make it more interesting. This makes for quite complicated rhythms.Īnd I'd just hit town and my throatwas dryĪlthough Johnny's delivery changes the emphasis on the second line:Īnd I'd just hit town and my throat was dry Iambic pentameter is a rhythm structure, used most commonly in poetry, that combines unstressed syllables and stressed syllables in groups of five. Pentameter is the most famous meter for iambic poetry, but it’s not the only one there’s dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, etc.
William Shakespeare loved using this iambic meter in his plays and poetry for the flow it created. Unstressed-stressed unstressed-stressed unstressed-stressed unstressed-stressed unstressed-stressed/ Answer (1 of 4): Sonnets are traditionally love poems, made famous by Shakespeare, but existed way before he popularised them. The use of iambic pentameter is a way to add rhythm to the poem in one specific way.
Unstressed-unstressed-stressed, unstressed-stressed, unstressed-unstressed-stressed unstressed-stressed It consists of ten syllables per line, or five ‘feet’ with an emphasis on the first.
