Iambic Pentameter for Actors

“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” “Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?” “Awake, arise or be forever fallen.” Iambic pentameter has flavoured some of the greatest writing in the history of Western art. For actors, it’s a terrific shortcut to stakes, tension, emotion: all the dramatic goodies that amplify a performance.  Provided, that is, that they know how best to wield it.

Iambic pentameter is a poetic meter consisting of five iambic units—an unstressed/stressed syllabic pairing. An example of blank verse, it is an important rhythmic scheme in Western art due to its prominent employ in plays and sonnets by William Shakespeare. Actors aspiring to Shakespearean text need to know and understand how iambic pentameter works, to best unlock the meaning and emotion in Shakespeare’s words.

Iambic pentameter is an extremely diverse poetic metre, and it has existed long before and after the brief life of the Bard. That being said, our focus today is iambic pentameter in the context of William Shakespeare—the author who will most likely introduce this scheme into an actor’s life.

What is Iambic Pentameter?

Iambic pentameter is the predominant poetic meter used in the plays and sonnets of William Shakespeare. It consists of five (hence “penta”) iambs per line—which are a rhythmic unit in poetry made up of an un-stressed/stressed syllable pairing.

Example: da-DUM / da-DUM / da-DUM / da-DUM /da-DUM

Iambic pentameter is an example of ‘blank verse’: poetry that follows a rhythmic scheme, but doesn’t necessarily rhyme. It can rhyme, but this does not affect its classification.

While Shakespeare is the writer most associated with iambic pentameter, it was also widely used by his contemporaries, and by later poets such as Milton (in Paradise Lost) and Wordsworth.

Its use has trickled down into modern writing where, due to its association with Shakespeare, it is seen as a stylistic choice and nod to the Bard himself. Iambic pentameter tends to writing a timeless, self-important air (which is not necessarily a bad thing!) Here’s an example from the film Yes (2004) by Sally Potter, in which she utilised iambic pentameter for almost all of the dialogue.

Why did Shakespeare use Iambic Pentameter?

Iambic pentameter can be traced back to Renaissance forms of drama and poetry (and far back beyond that to Ancient Greece), and therefore there is a sense of tradition that informs its usage. However, there are a number of stylistic and practical reasons Shakespeare used iambic pentameter in his writing.

• Iambic pentameter signalled educated, courtly or formal characters/interactions. Noble, high-born characters would speak with poetic language, whereas commoners tended to speak in prose (without rhythm or metre.) Interestingly, a character like Prince Hal in Henry IV would switch from prose to blank verse depending on the company he kept.
• Poetic writing is easier for actors to memorise. With a rhythm, clear structure and lashings of rhyme, it’s easier to get a flow going in terms of learning and realising chunks of text for performance.
• Poetic language is ‘heightened’ language. It’s larger than life, so it’s primed for all sorts of dramatic moments of high stakes and tension! Truly naturalistic dialogue is often boring as hell—and an audience is not exactly rebelling when they remark that “I could’ve heard this kind of crap at home…”
• Poetic language lends itself to description. Before the days of filling a theatre stage with camera crews and LED screens, much of the action of the larger action of a play had to be described. Iambic pentameter helps paint a portrait of these goings on, and capture the attention of listeners so that they don’t miss out on important plot details.

But most of all—and this might come as a shock to you—but iambic pentameter’s un-stressed/stressed rhythm (da-DUM) is very similar to how humans speak. In fact, once you become aware of iambic stressing in human speech, you’ll start to notice it everywhere:

The funny thing about this style of verse is just how ‘normal’-sounding it can be. We think of Shakespeare’s language as obtuse and yet the rhythm causes it to flow. It mimics human speech: and that’s the key. It’s musical—yet grounded. Truthful. Real. 

Still not convinced? Read the above paragraph one more time: it’s written in iambic pentameter from start to finish.

Iambic Pentameter for Actors

Actors tend to get conflicting advice about iambic pentameter. One camp believes that the rhythm is all: it gives you everything you need, and you merely need to speak the words of Shakespeare to convey the character’s thoughts and feelings.

The other camp believes that you need to ‘forget’ the poetry and treat the words as any other dialogue in any other script. Both schools of thought have a point. Neither are completely correct.

Your goal with Shakespeare’s dialogue is to make it sound natural. You don’t want the rhythm to overwhelm what’s being said, leading to a ‘sing-song’ delivery that resembles a nursery rhyme.

But let your delivery be informed by what the poetic metre might be telling you. Shakespeare hides subtext in his writing through word choice, imagery and rhythm. So if you throw iambic pentameter out the window completely, you risk sacrificing meaning. And this only make your job as an actor more difficult.

Deciphering Shakespeare’s Poetry

Funnily enough, it doesn’t take a lot to decode Shakespeare’s words and unlock their meaning. If you’re looking for tips on tackling iambic pentameter, our first piece of advice is to relax and treat it like any other acting process.

Don’t build up Shakespearean language up in your mind into something you can’t tackle without an english degree. It’s going to take some practice, and a little trial and error before you feel truly confident. But it’s a skill—a tool in your actor’s toolkit—like any other.

#1 Is it Iambic?

Start by confirming whether a speech/scene is actually in iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote in different schemes, as well as straight prose devoid of any rhyme or meter.

If it is iambic pentameter, determine why. Why is your character speaking formally? What is their relationship with their scene partner? Iambic pentameter denotes a sense of class or nobility in a character. Can you glean something about their status in a story or scene?

For some extra points: determine why a character isn’t speaking in blank verse if the situation otherwise dictates. There are as many clues about a story to be found in the absence of a language feature like iambic pentameter as there are in the inclusion of the scheme itself.

#2 Note the Metre

If you’ve identified iambic pentameter, mark stresses and un-stresses above your dialogue using “/” and “-“. This will give you an immediate understanding of how the rhythm is manifesting in the text.

It will also help you understand which words are ‘important’ in the line—those marked by emphasis. For example, at the top of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy:

 –     /     –      /   –     /      –     /   –     /    –
To be, or not to be, that is the question.

If we ignore the unstressed words, we still get the gist of what the Prince is saying. “Be”, “not be”, “is” and “question”. Sure, it sounds a little cave-mannish, but the idea persists. “Should I exist? Should I not exist? That’s what I’m thinking about.”

#3 Look for Outliers

A common mistake people make with iambic pentameter is thinking that there is no wiggle room in its execution. Shakespeare would routinely change up the iambic rhythm: and this wasn’t because he was bored of counting out the syllables on his fingers.

He often utilised what is known as a ‘feminine’ endings—a sexist term for when an additional syllable is added to ‘soften’ the end of a line. The above example from Hamlet is actually an example of this: note how “question” tapers off naturally.

What effect might we say this gives? Perhaps Hamlet is indecisive in this moment. He knows the question, but falters on its answering…

#4 A Different Way to Read

It’s also possible to find different rhythmic units within the pentamer structure. For example, there is another way to interpret the rhythm of the above line:

 –     /     –      /   –     /      /      –   –     /    –
To be, or not to be, that is the question.

In this version, we swap out the fourth iamb for a ‘trochee’. A trochee is the opposite rhythm of an iamb, consisting of a stressed/unstressed syllable pairing. Within the line itself, a trochee suddenly causes Hamlet to sound far more decisive about the problem at hand: “To be or not to be: that is the question.”  Arguably, this version sounds more natural—more akin to how a person might actually speak these words in everyday life.

Never feel like you have to fit the words to the rhythm of iambic pentameter. If a word or phrase doesn’t ‘fit’, it’s likely Shakespeare highlighting the importance of that moment for the benefit of the actor.

Conclusion

This leads us nicely to our final point about iambic pentameter. So nicely, in fact, we’re going to leave you with these words of wisdom as a parting shot: know the poetry, study the poetry, interrogate the poetry. But never lose sight of your ultimate goal, which is to perform it.

As you explore Shakespeare’s words, keep speaking them out loud. Keep enjoying them out loud. Look for the music that comes from such terrific, rhythmic writing. And if you find yourself confused, frustrated, overthinking, switch your ‘study brain’ off for a bit and come back to what Shakespeare did best.

Become a character, driven by want, and pursue an objective with the best words you could possibly hope for.

Good luck!