Czech alexandrine Czech alexandrine Czech alexandrine (in Czech "český alexandrín") is a verse form found in Czech poetry of the 20th century. It is a metre based on French alexandrine. The most important features of the pattern are number of syllables (twelve or thirteen) and a caesura after the sixth syllable. It is an unusual metre, exhibiting characteristics of both syllabic and syllabotonic (accentual-syllabic) metre. Thus it occupies a transitional position between syllabic and accentual patterns of European versification. It stands out from the background of modern Czech versification, which is modeled chiefly after German practice. The Czech alexandrine is also metrically
Syllabic verse the most significant exceptions to this pattern are in Latvian, Lithuanian, and Serbian verse which, instead of stress, retain the older quantitative markers; that is, they use long and short syllables at the ends of hemistichs, rather than stressed and unstressed. Because all of these variables — line length, number and length of hemistichs, obligatory stress positions, etc. — differ in detail among various verse traditions; and because the individual languages supply words with different rhythmic characteristics; this basic metrical template is realized with great variety by the languages that use it, and a sequence of syllables that is metrical