Alexandrine

An alexandrine (French pronunciation: ​[alɛksɑ̃dʁin]) is a line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. Alexandrines are common in the German literature of the Baroque period and in French poetry of the early modern and modern periods. Drama in English often used alexandrines before Marlowe and Shakespeare, by whom it was supplanted by iambic pentameter (5-foot verse). In non-Anglo-Saxon or French contexts, the term dodecasyllable is often used.

Origin

There is some doubt as to the origin of the name; but most probably it is derived from a collection of Alexandrine romances, collected in the 12th century, of which Alexander the Great was the hero, and in which he was represented, somewhat like the British Arthur, as the pride and crown of chivalry. Before the publication of this work most of the trouvère romances appeared in octosyllabic verse. There is also a theory that the form was invented by the 12th-century poet Alexander of Paris. The new work, which was henceforth to set the fashion to French literature, was written in lines of twelve syllables, but with a freedom of pause which was afterwards greatly curtailed. The new fashion, however, was not adopted all at once. The metre fell into disuse until the reign of Francis I, when it was revived by Jean-Antoine de Baïf, one of the seven poets known as La Pléiade.

Alexandrine (disambiguation)

"Alexandrine" is an adjective largely synonymous with "Alexandrian". It may refer to:

Literature

People

Other

See also