Why did shakespeare write in iambic pentameter?

Answer 1

In 1573, as part of his new religious reforms (because he had just become Pope in 1572) Pope Gregory XIII instituted the Catholic practice that all secular poetry was required to be written in iambic pentameter in order to encourage primarily religious work. By the time William Shakespeare was of age to begin seriously writing poetry, it had become common practice to use primarily iambic pentameter in any work worthy of reading. Because of this, he adopted the practice of writing in iambic pentameter.

Interestingly, the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in iambic pentameter mirrors the way most people naturally speak. This writing pattern, embraced by Shakespeare, makes the Old English verse sound more conversational, and more familiar to modern listeners.

Answer 2

Quite a lot of playwrights in Shakespeare's time wrote in iambic pentameter.

Shakespeare varied between iambic pentameter and prose to show us a little about the characters who were speaking.

Iambic pentameter is also known as "verse" or "blank verse". It is more lyrical than verse.

Generally, Shakespeare made his noble or well-bred characters speak in verse to show how refined they are. Characters of a lower station in life would speak in prose.

However, sometimes, Shakespeare would mix this up to show a change in the mood or the mind of a character.

For example, in Hamlet, Hamlet generally speaks in verse - as is befitting a Prince of Denmark. However, when Hamlet becomes mad, he begins to speak in prose. This shows a disorderly state of mind, since Hamlet has supposedly gone crazy and now cannot order his thoughts well enough to speak in verse.

Using prose also serves as comic relief and hints at more serious matters to come - for which iambic pentameter would be used instead.

Answer 3

Strange as this may seem, all human societies have a standard verseline, and all human societies choose their standard verseline to be a length which is easily pronounced in a single breath.

How long a 'single breath' is varies slightly according to the type of language, but English has a strong ictus (stress mark) and many consonantal clusters (which make enunciation relatively difficult) so the English standard line would need to be somewhere between eight syllables and twelve syllables in length.

English is also rich in monosyllables and disyllables compared to many languages, so one would expect the two-syllable foot (trochaic or iambic) to be the norm in the standard line.

Within the constraints of:

#1: between eight and twelve syllables per standard line. and

#2: trochaic or iambic structure

the alternatives are:

Trochaic tetrameter, trochaic pentameter, trochaic hexameter (8, 10, 12 syllables respectively)

Iambic tetrameter, iambic pentameter, iambic hexameter (8, 10, 12 syllables respectively)

Five of these six forms are found commonly acting as standard lines in the first two hundred years or so of modern English poetry (trochaic hexameter is rare), but when Chaucer adopted the iambic pentameter as his standard line for Troylus and Criseyde, and later for the Canterbury Tales he demonstrated such a mastery of the metre that most subsequent poets followed his example most of the time. (Lydgate, Hoccleve, Henryson, Dunbar and Gavin Douglas would be important examples of poets who adopted Iambic Pentameter because they admired Chaucer).

Once a standard has been set, it is natural that it will propagate as more and more people adopt it. Following the example of Chaucer and the Scottish Chaucerians, both Spenser and Sidney chose iambic pentameter as their main metre, then when the Elizabethan dramatists joined in, it became by far the major English verseline.

....

There was no real challenge to the iambic pentameter until the twentieth century - though several other natural linelengths continued as alternative choices. William Golding's Metamorphoses is written in the hybrid form eight and six, while Butler's Hudibras and Ebenezer Cook's Sot Weed Factor are both epic poems written in tetrameter.

No challenge was needed: the iambic pentameter was a good length of line, and everyone was used to it.

In the twentieth century though several poets - notably Ezra Pound - have made a concerted attempt to re-introduce the trochee as the basic unit of English prosody:

To break the Pentameter - that was the first heave.

Answer 4

Pentameter is a close approximation of the rhythms of English speakers. Many examples can be given of natural speech which falls into this pattern. Some early plays contain verse in longer or shorter lines than pentameter, and which does not sound as natural.

For a close examination of this phenomenon, including examples, I recommend the second episode in the Royal Shakespeare Company production Playing Shakespeare with John Barton, which you may be able to borrow from a library.

Answer 5

to rhyme and arrange according to one of certain definite schemes

Answer 6

for English 11 in odesy program answer is true

that is the most common meter