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
Polish alexandrine Polish alexandrine Polish alexandrine (Polish: "trzynastozgłoskowiec") is a common metrical line in Polish poetry. It is similar to the French alexandrine. Each line is composed of thirteen syllables with a caesura after the seventh syllable. The main stresses are placed on the sixth and twelfth syllables. Rhymes are feminine. The Polish alexandrine was introduced in the 15th century. It was borrowed from Latin poetry. It was widely used by Jan Kochanowski, the first great Polish poet, as exemplified in the first two lines of his "Lament 13", with a formal paraphrase in English: The Polish national epic, Pan Tadeusz by