Talk:Iambic pentameter

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can say the classical use is peripheral, after all some people may be only interested in the classical context. I now think that the best way might be to have two separate articles, one called 'Iambic pentameter' and the other called 'Iambic pentameter (classical prosody)' and to have mutual links at the top of each article ... that way the classicists can have whatever they need in their own article, and the English (and other modern European languages) verse article can jut make a brief historical mention in the body of the article. Stumps 04:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a possibility. Does the metre exist only in Latin or is it in Greek as well? The reason I ask is that the title classical prosody might be a bit confusing, in the sense that 'classical' is often used to refer to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It's not a 'correct' use, I know. But I was thinking along the lines of an Iambic pentameter (English) and Iambic pentameter (Latin) as an alternative possibility. That might also forestall criticism of a non-global perspective in the article. DionysosProteus 11:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Stumps, yes, you've picked out a concern I had while re-writing the intro, that a foot isn't always a pair of syllables; I used it because in the case of iambic pentameter (this rhytm), it is. But it's good not to mislead by giving the impression that a pair is the general form of a foot. I used trapeze because it was on a web site of people's favourite words; surprising how few of those were iambic--most favourites appeared to be trochaic. A couple more examples of iambic two-syllable english words might not go amiss. If you think of any juicy ones, please add them. DionysosProteus 15:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Wow, total rewrite! I must say that this definitely brings it down to my level. Renduy 05:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Notation for scansion

Isn't there a way to get proper scansion marks to indicate stress? Otherwise we'll never have good examples for prosody and versification. --Dmerrill

Maybe something of this sort:

 v   -    v    -    v     -      v   -  v     - 
Was this the face that launch'd  a thousand ships

That's quite close to the "normal" way of marking it. It also leaves places for all sorts of dashes. --Uriyan

I like it. Indeed, it's the way I do it for class handouts! --MichaelTinkler
I get it know,but still confused what iambic pentameter mean give me more specific example--unknown
How about ...
Shǎll Í cǒmpáre thěe tó ǎ súmměr's dáy?
or
Shǎll Ī cǒmpāre thěe tō a sūmměr's dāy?
Unfortunately, not ideal in this font. — Stumps 15:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
It seems the only other way to ensure alignment of stress marks with syllables is to use tables ... something like this:
x
/
x
/
x
/
x
/
x
/
To swell the gourd, and plump the ha- zel shells
I've started introducing this to the article. We can see how it looks when there are a few examples. — Stumps 20:16, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I like the table look, but I have two reservations: 1. I've never seen "x"'s used for unstressed syllables before, and it strikes me as a potentially confusing mark because I think of X as in "X" marks the spot as meaning, hit here, when of course it means just the opposite.
I have started an article — Systems of Scansion — where we can explain the notations. I had thought / and x was fairly common. I like it because it leaves the classical notation still free for marking quantity, so you can actually use both simultaneously without confusion. I will try to extend the survey in Systems of Scansion so that we can get a good overview of what really is commonly used, and also gives us the opportunity to examine the merits of the various documented schemes. — Stumps 04:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
2. If we have to add the <center>x</center> around each mark, it will get tedious indeed -- I'd recommend we do the following instead:
x / x / x /
An eas ier sort of code

.

I would propose we might just use "DA|DUM" instead of attempting marks, as they're instantly understood and easy to type (the marks that I learned to use for scansion are not easy to type (a u-like thing and a macron, more or less).
I prefer marks because they are easy to read simultaneously with the text of an example. DA|DUM requires two passes over the text I think. The difficulty of typing the various symbols can be overcome by copying and pasting, but it seems there are also probalems DISPLAYING some of the symbols ... for example, some of these pages look ok when I use Firefox, but have blanked out special characters on the same computer when I use Internet Explorer. — Stumps 04:51, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I just converted the Donne example to the table style. In doing so, I realized the key problem with the table notation we have here is that feet don't line up. I might prefer using monospaced fonts a la the following:

|  /   x   |  x   /   |   x    /   |   x    /    |  x    /   |
| Batter   | my heart | three per- | soned God   | for  you  |
|  x   /   |  x     / |   /     /  |  x    /     |  x     /  |
| as  yet  | but knock|breath shine| and seek    | to    mend|
|   x  /   |   x   /  |  x    /    |  x     /    | x  x   /  |
| That I   | may rise | and stand  | o'erthrow   |me and bend|
|  x    /  |  x   /   |  /     /   |  x   /      |  x  /     |
|Your force| to break | blow burn  | and make    | me new    |

That allows editing to happen more easily and allow us to line up feet in a row -- in the above, for example, it's easier to see the rhythmic parallel between lines 2 and 4 than it is in the version currently in the article. Tom

Wow! A great job. I've made a few adjustments to the 'tabulation' of the Donne example in the article ... it now looks like this:

/
x
x
/
x
/
x
/
x
/
Bat- ter | my heart | three- per- | soned God, | for you |
x
/
x
/
/
/
x
/
x
/
as yet | but knock, | breathe, shine | and seek | to mend. |
x
/
x
/
x
/
/
/
x
x
/
That I | may rise | and stand | o'er throw | me and bend |
x
/
x
/
/
/
x
/
x
/
Your force | to break, | blow, burn | and make | me new. |

The changes being simply:

  • making each line its own table
  • allowing a 'cell' for the | mark

At this stage I haven't attempted to put the feet in columns ... getting things to line up vertically, as this is - I think - not the usual approach in texts on the subject. It gets tricky when poets start adding extra syllables or dropping them out. Also, of course, in the one column you could have a syllable that is spelled short and in another row one splled long ... in this example there is an 'I' and a 'force' in the second column ... and this can make the alignment look a bit strange. Here is one attempt at trying to get it into columns. I think I prefer the above version where each line has its own length.

/
x
x
/
x
/
x
/
x
/
Bat- ter | my heart | three- per- | soned God, | for you |
x
/
x
/
/
/
x
/
x
/
as yet | but knock, | breathe, shine | and seek | to mend. |
x
/
x
/
x
/
/
/
x       x
/
That I | may rise | and stand | o'er throw | me and bend |
x
/
x
/
/
/
x
/
x
/
Your force | to break, | blow, burn | and make | me new. |

all for now ... Stumps 21:02, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

"Many feel the success of iambic pentameters is related to its sounding like a human heartbeat at rest."

This strikes me as rather absurd. I'd like to delete it unless someone feels strongly that this is true and can point me to some of the "many" who say so. Tom 18:27, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I went ahead and deleted it. Tom
Personally I feel that the success of iambic pentameter is do to the fact that it sounds very much like natural speaking in many ways.AbsintheMinded

I have a question: How on earth do you tell if single syllable words "I, He, She, Cat, Be...." Are stressed/Unstressed? The only thing I know for fact is stressed is "A"; and writing multiple syllable lines is driving me nuts!

Two ways: 1. you read them aloud and see what they sound like. 2. You look at the underlying rhythm of the line. If you're in the midst of iambic pentameter, then you're likely to feel a word as unstressed or stressed based on the iambic pattern that's been established. One syllable words have some flexibility, in other words, whereas words like "present", which change meaning based on the stress, obviously can only be read in one way (depending on the meaning you want of course).

It would seem to me that the stress on single syllable words depends on the other words they are used in conjunction with, but I'm just a science teacher! Also, the success of iambic pentameter is paralleled in the success of musical rhythms like the shuffle. Clearly this is a pleasing rhythm for humans since it shows up so often. As to why we like it so much, who knows? (it could be our heartbeats!) The ultimate aspect of any spoken form is how easily it flows from the mouth and I would agree that IP does feel quite natural.

While I appreciate that a considerable amount of work has gone into evolving the notation of scanning in this article, I do feel it's important to say that I think the choice arrived at in the article at the moment is the worst of what we might call the two-symbol systems. The Systems of scansion does a good job of outlining the different options, and I've added an example of the four main versions today there. Even the most cursory glance at those four reveals the fundamental problems with the x system. The x-marks-the-spot association has already been mentioned, but even more immediately than that, as a visual mark it draws the eye far more swiftly and noticeably than the /. I'd be willing to bet that if we were to take a line of scansion marks from this system to joe bloggs on the street and asked them to tap out that rhythm, they'd tap hard on the 'x's. None of the many practical theatre books I have on this subject use that notation, and with good reason--I fear it's a literary system only. Rhythm is something felt with the body first, and any system that requires a counter-intuitive mental adjustment interrupts that process. There are three other options, each of which has advantages and disadvantages; might we discuss them? The ability to measure length, for instance, is not immediately relevant in this context, at least in the article as it stands, so the classical is a possibility. I like the Bridges, but adapted to a ⋀ and ⌣ pairing (that's more or less what all my formal education used). The Ictus and breve system has the advantage of not requiring adaptation of any kind and of providing a significant visual differentiation that draws the eye in the appropriate syncopation. That's how it looks to me, anyhow. DionysosProteus 03:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Great to see someone giving this some more thought! I agree the x / notation has problems (perhaps there's a better unicode symbol for the x which would make it less prominent??) ... my first thought it that we should use something that is fairly 'standard' ... my guess is that the ictus and breve notation is the most widespread. I am not sure how important the 'clash' with quantitative marking is ... I agree that in the context of this article there is not a problem, although of course it would be desirable to use a consistent notation for quantities and accents throughout all of the articles. My guess is that it is not a big issue, and that we can just choose the 'best' notation for accents without worrying about a clash. Stumps 04:24, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] removed example

DUM-da da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM
(STRONG weak / weak STRONG / weak STRONG / weak STRONG / weak STRONG)
Shall I com - PARE thee TO a SUM mer's DAY
Which is an alternate reading of the first line. Whereas, the iambic pentameter of the third line is more stict:
(weak STRONG / weak STRONG / weak STRONG / weak STRONG / weak STRONG)
Rough winds do shake the darl -ing buds of May

I removed the above from the article for the following reasons.

  1. It interrupted the flow of the body -- there was already an example of trochaic inversion coming up in the next sentence (the Donne example).
  2. This is a poor example of trochaic inversion, since the line is almost always read as an iamb. Furthermore, if we're going to allow for variants of the line, there's a third possible variant -- a spondee. On the other hand, the example already in the text was unambiguous: if you read "Batter my heart three personed God", there's no question that "Batter" is a troche.
  3. "Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May" is not a good example of strict iambic pentameter, since the reader is likely to ask why "Rough" couldn't be stressed (for this reason, two syllable words make better examples). If I were putting this back I would pick the 4th line -- "And summer's lease hath all too short a date" as a good example of "strict" pentameter, since all the unstressed one-syllable words are clearly unstressed ("And","hath","too","a").

Tom

[edit] What to call an inversion

I see that a while back the article used the phrase 'iambic inversion' and this was changed to 'trochaic inversion'. I think both terms are potentially confusing. If we are talking about iambic pentameter, then I think it is perfectly clear what the simple term inversion refers to. It is also simpler to say 'the inversion of the second foot is relatively rare' rather than 'the trochaic inversion of the second foot ...'. I recommend changing the text of the article to simply talk of 'inversions' (we can of course leave the useful references to trochees). Any passionate objections to this? — Stumps 10:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I used trochaic inversion (and renamed it trochaic inversion) because it's the term I heard in school. I then confirmed my hunch by doing a search for the term on google (as well as for the "iambic inversion" variant), whose results seemed to confirm that "trochaic inversion" was a common thing to call it. Tom

[edit] dum da dum da dum

is dum the proper term? it gets the point across but it just seems as if there should be some indication of the notation, as dum sounds kinda dumb. User:Kaldosh 05:56, 1 May 2006

the da DUM da DUM stuff has been in the article for a long time ... it may have first got there because we hadn't settled on a good way to mark scansion ... anyhow, as you say, it gets the point across, and I think this is important ... judging from some of the intermittent vadalism the page seems to be visited by school-kids fairly often so it is probably important to have some fairly clear and straightforward explanation at the outset, and move gently into more technical territory. Having said that, I do think that the page could do with some tidying up, and we could possibly do without the big block of da DUM da DUMs explaining the rhythms of the lines from Donne's sonnet. I just haven't got around to reworking that bit yet. — Stumps 10:31, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] THAT is the QUEStion?

I'd say the example from Hamlet given in the article has doubtful scansion. It's a fine example of a weak ending, but I think many actors would be just as likely to retain the stress on "is" and not on "that" in "that is the question".

Also, the deleted note about the human heartbeat is perhaps not the most sensical when looking at the text from a literary point of view, but many acting and voice instructors use this analogy (Kristin Linklater, to name one). It has relevance in the theatrical side of iambic pentameter; perhaps just having it as a stand-alone statement doesn't fit so well.

I think in general there should be more attention given to the interpretation of iambic pentameter in dramatic text, because the stress is often not just a matter of where we would naturally put the stress when speaking (and that's in our present-day voices), but can take into account the content of the rest of the speech. I'm not suggesting that actors get to mix and match however they like, but most of Shakespeare's speeches contain syllables that demand an artistic choice one way or another, and the choice affects character.

I find myself agreeing with some of the points you're making (anonymously) here, though I do have to point out, only slightly facetiously, that any actor that scans the line "that IS the QUESTion" deserves a swift and merciless slap on the basis that a) it's a dull, plodding reading and b) it completely misses the sense of the passage (he hasn't been debating with himself or us whether it is this question or maybe one of the other questions he's been thinking about, but, rather, he hits on this particular question at the opening of the speech, in the present moment, as it were). The heartbeat analogy is relevant, I think, albeit one of those Romanticized actor truisms with which the profession is plagued. Provided a citation is 'owned' in the text of the article, I think it's appropriate; but only with a citation from a well-known voice coach (that is, someone who fulfills criteria in professional theatre terms analogous to a reputable scholar; I'll look through Ciceley Berry and Patsy Rodenberg's books when I get a chance to see if there's something along those lines in there somewhere). The last point you make is, for me, the most significant. The article as it stands appears to lack any practical engagement with the speaking of verse; while Shakespeare and co. are far from being the only ones to use the metre, I would imagine that most of the users on an english wikipedia are coming for them. Even the opening definition that restricts it to 'poetry' is factually incorrect, not withstanding the misleading glosses about other media in that article (poetry doesn't mean verse in Aristotle, for instance; the historical shifts in meaning are more complex that the article implies). I would suggest that we look at specific areas and particular examples that may be used to explore these aspects. I'll start to have a tinker in the next week or so. DionysosProteus 03:25, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ten feet in a pentameter???

I have — at least for now, pending clarification here — removed the following sentence from the lead section. "In the ancient poetry, however, no "iambic pentameter" exists; also, if it had existed, a verse would consist of ten (not five) iambic feet, just like the iambic trimeter consists of six ones." Can someone (a) explain this, and (b) provide a source. Stumps 04:44, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Idea

Let's use some sample audio. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.104.62.216 (talk) 23:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restore the brilliant introduction from 178760928 as an example.

The explanation of Iambic pentameter in Iambic pentameter is too well done to simply be deleted in the name of proper article formatting. Since it's obvious it's going to continue to be deleted and restored as an introduction and will get no rest there, I've restored it instead as an example where I hope it will prove less contentious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schwern (talk • contribs) 23:26, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of the creative merit or otherwise of the passage in question, it strikes me as a piece of original work that comes under the policy relating to original research. I don't think this sort of thing belongs in wikipedia. Stumps (talk) 00:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. The presentation helps example the subject, and does not in any way detract from it. --Muna (talk) 03:03, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Surely there a thousands of better possible examples that could be included? Stumps (talk) 03:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

While it is very funny to have the introduction in iambic pentameter - probably doesn't belong in a encylopedia.... 167.247.219.10 (talk) 10:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

BTW, the line "The two expressions meaning just the same" is incorrect. Do we need a poet to edit this part of the encyclopedia? Stumps (talk) 03:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Clever as it may be, the explanation of Iambic pentameter in Iambic pentameter is not, strictly speaking, IN iambic pentameter. The syllables in the first line (iambic pentameter) do not naturally fall into the unstressed, stressed pattern of iambic pentameter. It reads as "i-AM-bic pen-TA-me-ter", which is clearly not constructed of iambs. Due to the neighboring unstressed syllables in "pentameter", one really cannot mention it in a work in iambic pentameter. I would request that this poor example be taken down and replaced with a poem that better demonstrates iambic pentameter at work, with the syllables NATURALLY falling into iambic pentameter. 69.140.175.26 (talk) 17:42, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I am confused. It would appear that the general consensus is to remove the example, yet there it is still on the page. 18.239.1.80 (talk) 20:44, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I've removed it as per this consensus. Stumps (talk) 20:48, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of classical examples

The article says that iambic pentameter is a Greek thing that we apply to English by analogy with the classics, but then goes on to give only English examples. Greek and Latin examples are sorely lacking. — Chameleon 12:14, 25 May 2008 (UTC)