Ode on a Grecian Urn

“Ode on a Grecian Urn” consists of five ten-lined stanzas that present, describe, and depict a scene. The ten lines of each stanza are written in iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter assigns ten syllables to each line. The first syllable is unaccented; the second is accented; the third is unaccented, and the pattern continues. The most easily recognized lines of iambic pentameter appear in the poem’s first two lines, with the bolded words representing the accented syllables:

“Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, / Thou foster-child of silence and slow time” (Lines 1-2).

“Iambic” refers to a pair of syllables, one unaccented and the other accented. “Thou still” (Line 1) is an iamb, as is “slow time” (Line 1). “Bride of” (Line 1) and “foster” (Line 2) are not iambs, because they consist of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented one. “Pentameter” refers to lines consisting of five iambs, and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is considered iambic pentameter because each line has five iambs. Despite being a common meter, the iambic pentameter in the poem is hardly noticeable due to Keats’s artful language. An example is the line “Ah, happy, happy boughs! That cannot shed!” (Line 21).