Czech alexandrine Jiří Orten: <poem style="margin-left: 2em; font-style:italic"> </poem> 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
French alexandrine target; they also cultivated the use of ' — lines with an odd, rather than even, number of syllables. These uneven lines, though known from earlier French verse, were relatively uncommon and helped suggest a new rhythmic register. ' is the source of the English term free verse, and is effectively identical in meaning. It can be seen as a radical extension of the tendencies of both ' (various and unpredictable line lengths) and ' (weakening of strictures for caesura and rhymes, as well as experimentation with unusual line lengths). Its birth — for the reading public at least —