1. The language of shakespeare’s plays
Written primarily using blank verse and prose:
Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter
Prose: written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure
Iambic Pentameter: a rhyme scheme in which each line consists of ten syllables
Syllables are divided into five pairs called iambs or iambic feet
An iamb is a metrical unit made up of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable
Meter: the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse

2. Iambic Pentameter
An example of an iamb would be good BYE. A line of iambic pentameter flows like this:
da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM
This is 10 syllables, with an unstressed and then stressed pattern (grouped into five units)
When I / do COUNT / the CLOCK / that TELLS / the TIME (Sonnet 12)
Shall I / com PARE / thee TO / a SUM / mer’s DAY?
Thou ART/ more LOVE / ly AND / more TEM / per ATE (Sonnet 18)

3. Sonnet Structure Total of fourteen lines
First twelve are divided into three quatrains with four lines each
In the three quatrains,
the poet establishes a theme or problem and then
Resolves it in the final two lines, called the couplet
Heroic couplet: Two consecutive lines that rhyme in iambic pentameter

4. Sonnet pattern Let’s look at the prologue once more for this pattern
Rhyme scheme of the quatrains:
abab cdcd efef
Couplet has the rhyme scheme: gg
Let’s look at the prologue once more for this pattern