French alexandrine French alexandrine The French alexandrine () is a syllabic poetic meter of (nominally and typically) 12 syllables with a medial caesura dividing the line into two hemistichs (half-lines) of six syllables each. It was the dominant long line of French poetry from the 17th through the 19th century, and influenced many other European literatures which developed alexandrines of their own. According to verse historian Mikhail Gasparov, the French alexandrine developed from the Ambrosian octosyllable, by gradually losing the final two syllables, then doubling this line in a syllabic context with phrasal stress rather than length as a marker. The earliest
Syllabic verse most common lengths are the thirteen-syllable line ("trzynastozgłoskowiec" or "Polish alexandrine"), the eleven-syllable line ("jedenastozgłoskowiec") and eight-syllable line ("ośmiozgłoskowiec"). The rules of Polish verse were established in the 16th century. Polish metrics were strongly influenced by Latin, Italian, and French poetry. To this day originally Italian forms (like ottava rima) are written in Poland in 11-syllable lines. Accentual verse was introduced into Polish literature at the end of 18th century but it never replaced traditional syllabic metres. Today 9-syllable lines are extremely popular. They are iambic or choriambic. Syllabic verse Syllabic verse is a poetic form having a fixed or