This post is based on a short extract from my Guide to Macbeth, available on Amazon
Knowing this will help you write brilliantly about Shakespeare’s purpose and effect on the reader.
Shakespeare gives his lines ten syllables. Each syllable is paired with another. In the iambic form, the first syllable is not emphasised, but the second is. These two syllables are called a foot. So, it is ‘pentameter’ because it has five (pent = five in Ancient Greek) feet. And as each foot has two syllables, pentameter has ten syllables.
Ok, so what?
“The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step
On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap,
For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires”.
Shakespeare used it to show his actors how to deliver the lines, letting them know which parts of words to emphasise. He also only gives iambic pentameter to his characters of noble birth.
Some people believe it recreates the heartbeat, because is goes te – TUM – te – TUM – te – TUM – te – TUM – te – Tum, which is the same sort of logic that says you use a comma when you pause. Maybe, but you use most punctuation where you could pause, especially full stops. So, no, it has nothing to do with your heart beat.
With meter, it’s similar - any sort of meter can be described as a heart beat. For example, this would also sound like a heartbeat: TUM – te – TUM – te – TUM – te – TUM – te – Tum – te – . This meter is called trochaic, where the emphasis comes on the first syllable. Shakespeare has some cunning ways to use trochaic meter.
Ok, so what? As Macbeth becomes ever more evil, after committing regicide, his lines often become trochaic. Like this:
“Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing”
They usually reveal psychological issues the character is having, through guilt, lying, becoming evil – etc. Focus on these changes, and you will easily get top grades.
Or when Lady Macbeth first plans to kill Duncan, Shakespeare reveals the psychological cost of this by suddenly changing to trochaic meter:
“Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between”.
See? The moment she feels shaken by her own evil thoughts, she can’t keep the iambic pentameter!
The other change to the meter is to give lines more or less than the standard number of feet, or syllables. These changes also indicate a psychological issue, where the character is losing control, and so loses control of the pentameter.
At other times, two characters will share the iambic pentameter, one person speaking say five iambs, and the other speaking the next five. Where the iambic pentameter is shared, the characters are in agreement and harmony. When the iambic pentameter is disrupted, they are out of agreement and harmony. Look out for these when Macbeth is speaking to Lady Macbeth, Banquo and Macduff.
For example, when Macbeth arrives, she interrupts her thoughts about planning Duncan’s murder:
LADY MACBETH: The future in the instant. (7 syllables)
MACBETH: My dearest love, (4 syllables)
Shakespeare instantly alerts us to the marriage going wrong – they share a line of 11 syllables and break the iambic meter.
This happens again almost immediately, as she reveals her desire to commit regicide:
LADY MACBETH: And when goes hence?
MACBETH: Tomorrow, as he purposes. (8 syllables)
LADY MACBETH: O, never (3 syllables)
(Did you spot what the bold words in my sentences are - rather than the bold words in the quotations? They are all examples of subject terminology. That’s why you don’t need to keep writing about verb, adverb, noun, adjective etc. Subject terminology means ‘the language you must use in a literature essay to explain your ideas’. It never means ‘the language you must use to prove you can use subject terminology to an examiner’!)