Mr. STEVEN PAGE (Barenaked Ladies): And I thought, how am I going to fit iambic pentameter into a rock 'n' roll format?

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Poets have long extolled the benefits of constraint on their craft (Shakespearean sonnets pack a lot of punch with iambic pentameter).

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Even when Jon Snow, an iconic British television newsreader appearing in a studio cameo, speaks in iambic pentameter it appears startlingly natural.

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The most common metrical form is the iambic fifteen-syllable verse in a rhyming couplet, although a poet may use eight-syllable, six-syllable or even nine-syllable verses.

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Guests are kept company by a chorus of coqui, the ubiquitous native frog whose iambic croak gives it its name and Puerto Rico its natural soundtrack.

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It is hard to find a piece of free verse that outshines a well-executed traditional Shakespearian sonnet, despite the later conforming to a rigid structure of 14 iambic pentameter lines and a strict rhyme scheme.

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That seems fitting enough, but we also get panel discussions in TV studios, video feeds, and a genuine British news anchor declaiming iambic pentameters as if from an autocue all a trifle forced, as if Fiennes were concerned that we might be embarrassed, or bored, by the spectacle of the bare play.

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