Excerpt from Sonnet 116
William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments, love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove
0. no, it is an ever-fixed mark, 5
That looks on tempests and is never shaken,
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come: 10
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom
It this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- Which BEST explains why this poem's rhythmical pattern is identified as iambic pentameter?
A) Each line is a line of verse with ten metrical feet, each consisting of one short or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable
B) Each line is a line of verse with ten metrical feet, each consisting of one long (or stressed) syllable followed by one short (or unstressed) syllable
C) Each line is a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable
D) Each line is a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one long (or stressed) syllable followed by one short (or unstressed) syllable

An iambic pentameter is a combination of two words, 'iamb' which in poetry refers to the foot or the beat of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Or, in simple words, an iamb is a beat in a line of poetry that consists of an unstressed or short syllable followed by a stressed or long syllable. Pentameter, on the other hand, refers to five metrical feet in a line of poetry.

So, an iambic pentameter refers to a line of poetry that consists of five metrical feet with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

So, according to the definition provided the correct answer is option C.