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
A Lecture on Modern Poetry poetry was akin to religion. It is nothing of the sort." Hulme discusses how forms rise and fall, and proceeds to the topic of French "vers libre," referring to Gustave Kahn's explanation of the technique: "It consisted in a denial of a regular number of syllables as the basis of versification. The length of the line is long and short, oscillating with the images used by the poet; it follows the contours of his thought and is free rather than regular." Hulme concludes with a call to arms: "a shell is a very suitable covering for the egg at a