'Tis a Pity She's A Blog! 6

John Ford was a contemporary of shakespeare and wrote in a similar style. Most of 'Tis A Pity She's A Whore is written in Iambic Pentameter.

"Two syllables together, or three if it’s a three-syllable construction, is known as a foot. So in a line of poetry the cow would be considered one foot. Because when you say the words, the is unstressed and cow is stressed, it can be represented as da DUM. An unstressed/stressed foot is known as an iamb. That’s where the term iambic comes from.

Pentameter is simply penta, which means 5, meters. So a line of poetry written in pentameter has 5 feet, or 5 sets of stressed and unstressed syllables. In basic iambic pentameter, a line would have 5 feet of iambs, which is an unstressed and then a stressed syllable. For example:

If you would put the key inside the lock

This line has 5 feet, so it’s written in pentameter. And the stressing pattern is all iambs:

if YOU | would PUT | the KEY | inSIDE | the LOCK

da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM"

"Definition." Iambic Pentameter. Web. 08 Mar. 2011. <http://iambicpentameter.net/iambic-pentameter-definition/>.