Iambic Pentameter from Shakespeare to Browning

This study adds to the debate over metrical description. The debate concerns how best to describe and account for the rule-governed metrical practice of poets writing iambic pentameter in English. The major work in this study is to reconcile the opposing points of view of the Halle and Keyser theory and the Kiparsky theory. It accounts for the placement in the poetic line of all the stress and intonation break sequences observed by the earlier theorists, and some additional ones as well. It oultines a basis in linguistic perception for the practice of many poets writing iambic pentameter, and accounts for the occasional anapestic/iambic lines which recur throughout the iambic pentameter tradition and attain prominence in the work of Robert Browning.