I understand that a line in iambic pentameter has five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables. However, if I were to speak in iambic pentameter, how would I get the ‘pentameter’ part across? The iambic part should not be difficult. Would the line concept not be applicable when spoken?
In material written in iambic pentameter, there’s generally some correspondence between sentences or other natural divisions of speech and the lines. It might be harder to pull off on the fly, though.
I think pausing is the only way to communicate it. Incidentally one of the virtues of iambic pentameter is that its rhythm is not that different from regular speech.
I’d suggest it’s often not important. You can’t deliver “To be or not to be” effectively if you’re trying to make sure the audience hears the pentameters, or even the iambs. It works better in “Ozymandias”, but even then, f’rex, the last lines should run:
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay of that colossal wreck,
boundless and bare,
the lone and level sands stretch far away.
Blank verse is ordinarily unrhymed iambic pentameter. The majority of Shakespeare’s plays were in fact written in it. Take Hamlet’s soliloquy for a good example:
“To be or not to be– that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.”
It’s dramatic, certainly. And broken out into lines, obviously verse. But it comes very close to being the pattern of normal speech. Or consider the following passage from one of Churchill’s great speeches:
“we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be…”
Much of that is in iambic pentameter, mixed with anapests.
FYI, this is a link to a YouTube video of the “Atomic Shakespeare” episode of the TV series Moonlighting. (The episode is a parody of The Taming of the Shrew.) The dialog is, more or less, in iambic pentameter.
Thank you all for the replies.
This was motivated by this xkcd strip, and Questionable Content.
It’s actually relatively easy. Start out with a line in iambic pentameter (I use "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships) and just keep up the rhythm. You probably couldn’t do it fast, but you could do it.