Originally published at: https://shanniiwrites.com/2019/04/18/what-is-iambic-pentameter-and-why-does-it-matter/
Confused about Iambic Pentameter? Well, here’s what it is and how it’s important!
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Iambic Pentameter is still the worst for me 
When we learned about it in school, our teacher made us read the lines very slow and we had to emphasize on the stressed syllables. It just sounded so weird to me and I always asked why people do that. On of my classmates said that the poets want to torture us
But the post really helps with understanding! Until now, I thought it doesn’t matter which syllable is stressed, although we’ve learned several metres, I just never understood what makes them different from each other 
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I know what it is conceptually, but I just have the hardest time actually telling patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables
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This is really interesting! In Greek, my native language, it was easier to explain, since our syllabi methods and rules are simpler, and less complex. Iambic Pentameter makes a poem sound more rythmic, without necessarily being accompanied by music. In my opinion, it isn’t important to make a poem good. The words alone can draw you in. But if it accompanies a good poem, it can make it stronger. However, if Iambic Pentameter exists on a silly worded poem, it just makes it sound even sillier. So I’d say, if you are to make a poem, don’t spend too much time finding words that match with each other so you can have a pattern. First lay out what you wanna include in your poem, and then understand how you will make your poem sound more rythmic using a pronouncing pattern.
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My teacher mentioned this in class and I don’t get it lmao
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Adding a tag
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Hey @Bloggers, ever wondered what your teach was going on about when talking about Shakespeare and Iambic Pentameter. Take a read of this and tell me what you think!
Remember that if you really enjoyed this blog, feel free to recommend it (it’s similar to liking it). This will help with it being higher in the results of search engines too.
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as an avid Shakespeare reader, i’ve become quite familiar with iambic pentameter, but given that it’s not nearly as usual in Spanish poetry, it’s not the metric i’m the most used to
(also i must say, as a hellenist, dactylic hexameter was the first metric i learnt to recognise, so recognising iambic pentameter has been quite easy to me)
back to the topic, some of my professors have brought up that iambic pentameter sounds like a heartbeat, which is now what i use as reference to read it
because of this, iambic pentameter sounds really natural in english, making it easier to find its musicality
or at least that’s what it’s like from my perspective
note / question
this may be on me, as English is not my first language, but i noticed Shannii highlighted the “pent” part of pentameter twice, to emphasise on it meaning five
but afaik, it’s “penta” that means five? instead of “pent”?
idk if that’s an error or if i’m missing some english rules that would make it “pent”
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I hate having to learn lit devices. Theres so many ahhh
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Omg I have the perfect video for this from one of my favorite tiktokers