Iambic+Pentameter

 Shakespeare wrote his sonnets (and many of the lines in his plays) in iambic pentameter, a technical term for a poetry pattern in which each line has 10 syllables, beginning with an unstressed syllable and a stressed syllable, followed by another pair of unstressed and stressed syllables, and so on–until there are five pairs of syllables (or ten syllables in all).  ....... To understand iambic pentameter, you first need to understand the term iamb. An iamb is a unit of rhythm consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The words annoy, fulfill, pretend, regard, and serene are all iambs because the first syllable of each word is unstressed (or unaccented) and the second syllable is stressed (or accented). Iambs may consist of a final unstressed syllable of one word followed by an initial stressed syllable of the next word. The following line from //Romeo and Juliet// demonstrates the use of iambs. The unstressed syllables are green and the stressed syllables are underlined in red:  ......  ............... ** But, __ soft __ ! what __ light __ through __ yon __ der __ win __ dow __ breaks __ ? **  Here are two more lines from //Romeo and Juliet// that also demonstrate the use of iambs: .  ............... ** I __ will __ not __ fail __ : 'tis __ twen __ ty __ years __ till __ then __. **  ............... ** I __ have __ for __ got __ why __ I __ did __ call __ thee __ back __. **  When a line has five iambs, it is in iambic pentameter. The prefix pent means five. (A figure with five sides is called a pentagon; an athletic competition with five track-and-field events is called a pentathlon.) The suffix meter (in pentameter) refers to the recurrence of a rhythmic unit (also called a foot). Thus, because the above lines contain iambs, they are iambic. Because they contain five iambs (five feet) they are said to be in iambic pentameter.