Dodecasyllable generally called the "alexandrine", after the French equivalent. Dodecasyllable Dodecasyllable verse () is a line of verse with twelve syllables. 12 syllable lines are used in a variety of poetic traditions. Jacob of Serugh (c. 451 – 29 November 521), a Miaphysite Bishop of Batnan da-Srugh, also called 'Flute of the Spirit' who composed in the dodecasyllabic verse more than seven-hundred verse homilies, or mêmrê (ܡܐܡܖ̈ܐ), of which only 225 have thus far been edited and published. It is also used in Italian and French poetry, and in poetry of the Croats (the most famous example being Marko Marulić). In
Alexandrine strings Sung th'ancient Heroes' deeds (the monuments of Kings) And in your dreadful verse ingrav'd the prophecies, The agèd world's descents, and geneaologies; (lines 31-34) </poem> The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser, with its stanzas of eight iambic pentameter lines followed by one alexandrine, exemplifies what came to be its chief role: as a somewhat infrequent variant line in an otherwise iambic pentameter context. Alexandrines provide occasional variation in the blank verse of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries (but rarely; they constitute only about 1% of Shakespeare's blank verse). John Dryden and his contemporaries and followers likewise occasionally employed them