Help writing a sonnet?
Question by aresthebat<3: Help writing a sonnet?
Okay I basically know the outline (ABABCDCDEFEFGG) but I have to write one for Creative Writing due Monday and my teacher wrote “11 syllables, 5 stressed, 5 unstressed” and that is completely confusing me. She also wrote “lambic pentameter” and I don’t know what that means. Could somebody please explain? Also if you have any ideas for the subject of this poem I would like that as well.
Thanks.
=)
Best answer:
Answer by laura_bean08
Iambic pentameter is one of many meters used in poetry and drama. It describes a particular rhythm that the words establish in each line. That rhythm is measured in small groups of syllables; these small groups of syllables are called “feet”. The word “iambic” describes the type of foot that is used. The word “pentameter” indicates that a line has five of these “feet”.
These terms originally applied to the quantitative meter of classical Greek poetry. They were adopted to describe the equivalent meters in English accentual-syllabic verse. Different languages express rhythm in different ways. In Ancient Greek and Latin, the rhythm is created through the alternation of short and long syllables. In English, the rhythm is created through the use of stress, alternating between unstressed and stressed syllables. An English unstressed syllable is equivalent to a classical short syllable, while an English stressed syllable is equivalent to a classical long syllable. When a pair of syllables is arranged as a short followed by a long, or an unstressed followed by a stressed, pattern, that foot is said to be “iambic”. The English word “trapeze” is an example of an iambic pair of syllables, since the word is made up of two syllables (“tra—peze”) and is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable (“tra—PEZE”, rather than “TRA—peze”). Iambic pentameter is a line made up of five pairs of short/long, or unstressed/stressed, syllables.
An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. The rhythm can be written as:
da DUM
A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row:
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM
got this from wikipedia, hope it helps
What do you think? Answer below!

