Common Misconceptions about Shakespeare's Meter

For our first post of 2025, let's take a look at some common misconceptions about Shakespeare's meter and clear them up. This post uses specific vocabulary relating to Shakespeare's meter. If you need a refresher, check out our Quick Guide to Scanning Shakespeare's Verse. Do you know of a misconception that didn't make the list? Comment down below and maybe we'll include it!

Misconception: Meter does not matter.

This is the biggest misconception of them all. Newcomers to Shakespeare often underestimate the impact of meter on the text. You cannot get the full experience of Shakespeare without considering (and experiencing) his meter. Meter is a literary tool that Shakespeare used to get his points across and shape the experience of reading, speaking, and hearing his plays. Meter can help uncover the meaning of a line, encouraging you to naturally stress the most important parts. It can create an impression about the character delivering the lines, or establish their mood. Iambic pentameter, which follows the rhythm of the human heartbeat, usually sounds natural. Trochaic inversions might introduce a feeling of tension, anger, or anxiety. You might notice that you read lines with trochaic inversion faster and even become out of breath. That is your body reacting to the meter.

Misconception: Shakespeare used only iambic pentameter.

Shakespeare used iambic pentameter as a base for many of his plays. But he does not limit himself to that meter. He knew that using perfect iambic pentameter line after line would sound robotic and boring, not natural and engaging. You'll find that he uses lots of variations: sometimes, he employs trochees rather than iambs; he adds syllables to the end of a line (in what's called a feminine ending); some lines or even bigger chunks of Shakespeare's text are written in prose instead of verse.

Misconception: You should pronounce words to make them fit the iambic pentameter.

While it might be tempting to look at a new line of Shakespeare's text with the preconceived notion that the line is written in perfect iambic pentameter, this will often result in incorrect scansion. For an analogy: imagine if a scientist started an experiment already knowing what conclusions they would draw. They focused on evidence that fit the conclusion and ignored evidence that did not. It's pretty clear that the scientist would be doing the wrong thing: the conclusion should be based on the results, not the other way around! The same applies in Shakespeare. While thinking about iambic pentameter is usually a good place to start, you should not force the words to fit into a clean ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM ba-DUM.

There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, as we saw above, Shakespeare included many variations in the stress pattern. Secondly, it sounds weird and risks confusing a listener. If you heard an actor say lad-DER instead of LAD-der during a performance, you would remark it as strange. You'd be startled right out of Shakespeare's world, instead thinking about why they said lad-DER. It might even take you a second or two to register what they said.

Misconception: You must pause at the end of a line.

This misconception is closely related to the previous one: you should not force the text to fit the meter when it does not. Being clear and speaking (or reading) with a natural flow should be your priority, with meter helping you accomplish that––not becoming an obstacle. Oftentimes, the end of a line is a perfectly natural and reasonable place to pause. Take this example, spoken by Othello in Act V, Scene 2 of Othello:

    "I kissed thee ere I killed thee: no way but this,

    Killing myself, to die upon a kiss."

But, other times, the line ends where a pause would break up an idea and sound very strange. Let's take a look at another line from Othello––a famous one delivered by Iago in Act III, Scene 3. Your intuition will tell you not to pause at the line break. As we've established, Shakespeare valued iambic pentameter for its natural flow (or he would have chosen a different meter), so let the line flow naturally as you read it.

    "It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock

    The meat it feeds on."

Misconception: There is only one correct scansion for a given line.

There can be multiple valid ways to scan the same line! These different scansions often correspond to different interpretations of the line. Sometimes, you can even put different scansions together to get the full meaning of the line. We've dedicated entire posts to some different ways to scan Shakespeare's lines, both in his plays and his sonnets.