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
Alexandrine caesura after the third foot. From Holland the accentual-syllabic alexandrine spread to other continental literatures. Similarly, in early 17th-century Germany, Georg Rudolf Weckherlin advocated for an alexandrine with free rhythms, reflecting French practice; whereas Martin Opitz advocated for a strict accentual-syllabic iambic alexandrine in imitation of contemporary Dutch practice — and German poets followed Opitz. The alexandrine (strictly iambic with a consistent medial caesura) became the dominant long line of the German baroque. Unlike many similar lines, the Polish alexandrine developed not from French verse but from Latin, specifically, the 13-syllable goliardic line: Though looser instances of this (nominally) 13-syllable