De Dum De Dum De Dum De Dum De Dum (sometimes followed by De at the end for an extra syllable, known as a softer and more feminine ending) is the best way to define Iambic Pentameter. The Dum is highlighted because this is stressed and some people say that its so natural that the beats resemble a heartbeat or the stress in the voice when we stress certain words.
In Shakespeare, you can often to the De Dum beat in your head whilst reading it aloud, and if it often doesn't fit in its because one character may have been given half of the iam and the next character will finish it off. Also when reading Shakespeare you must carry on reading even if it has gone to the next line and there is no comma or punctuation, only stop reading or take a break if there is a comma.
Prose refers to ordinary speech with no
regular pattern of accentual rhythm. Lines of text do not all have the same
numbers or any pattern of stressing certain words. In Shakespeare, characters
of a lower status tend to use prose as oppose to iambic pentameter e.g. Miranda
uses a mixture of the two, whereas Prospero is always speaking in iambic
pentameter, however Trinculo never uses iambic pentameter as he is of the
lowest ranking and the ‘joker’.
We did a number of exercises today to practice using Iambic pentameter. The first exercise was standing alone reading the Shakespeare script in our head and tapping our legs along with the De Dum beat. This exercise helped me a lot with understanding what words to stress on etc. We also did an exercise with the punctuation in the extract, and we would walk around the room reading out extract out loud and when we come to a form of punctuation we would stop and go a different direction, and I think we all found this helpful as it allowed us to know where to stop and when to carry on reading. We also underlined the stressed words in our scripts.
I think Iambic pentameter is really useful when reading Shakespeare as it allows rhythm and even makes a script easier to learn.
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