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Alexandrine is a name used for several distinct types of verse line with related metrical structures, most of which are ultimately derived from the classical French alexandrine. The line's name derives from its use in the Medieval French Roman d'Alexandre of 1170, although it had already been used several decades earlier in Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne. The foundation of most alexandrines consists of two (half-lines) of six each, separated by a caesura (a metrical pause or word break, which may or may not be realized as a stronger syntactic break):
o o o o o o | o o o o o o
o=any syllable; |=caesura
However, no tradition remains this simple. Each applies additional constraints (such as obligatory stress or nonstress on certain syllables) and options (such as a permitted or required additional syllable at the end of one or both hemistichs). Thus a line that is metrical in one tradition may be unmetrical in another.
Where the alexandrine has been adopted, it has frequently served as the heroic verse form of that language or culture, English being a notable exception.
o o o o o S | o o o o o S (e)
S=stressed syllable; (e)=optional ''mute e''
Classical alexandrines are always rhymed, often in alternating and , though other configurations (such as and ) are also common.
Victor Hugo began the process of loosening the strict two-hemistich structure. While retaining the medial caesura, he often reduced it to a mere word-break, creating a three-part line ( alexandrin ternaire) with this structure:
o o o S | o o ¦ o S | o o o S (e)
|=strong caesura; ¦=word break
The Symbolists further weakened the classical structure, sometimes eliminating any or all of these caesurae. However, at no point did the newer line replace the older; rather, they were used concurrently, often in the same poem. This loosening process eventually led to vers libéré and finally to vers libre.
× / × / × / ¦ × / × / × / (×)
/=''ictus'', a strong syllabic position; ×=''nonictus''
¦=often a mandatory or predominant caesura, but depends upon the author
Whereas the French alexandrine is syllabic, the English is accentual-syllabic; and the central caesura (a defining feature of the French) is not always rigidly preserved in English.
Though English alexandrines have occasionally provided the sole metrical line for a poem, for example in lyric poems by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Sir Philip Sidney, and in two notable long poems, Michael Drayton's Poly-Olbion and Robert Browning's Fifine at the Fair, they have more often featured alongside other lines. During the Middle Ages they typically occurred with heptameters (seven-beat lines), both exhibiting metrical looseness. Around the mid-16th century stricter alexandrines were popular as the first line of poulter's measure couplets, fourteeners (strict iambic heptameters) providing the second line.
The strict English alexandrine may be exemplified by a passage from Poly-Olbion, which features a rare caesural enjambment (symbolized ¦) in the first line:
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 as the second (rarely the first) line of , or even more distinctively as the third line of a triplet. In his Essay on Criticism, Alexander Pope denounced (and parodied) the excessive and unskillful use of this practice:
o o o o o S o | o o o o o S o
It was used beginning about 1200 for mester de clerecía (clerical verse), typically occurring in the cuaderna vía, a stanza of four alejandrinos all with a single end-rhyme.
The alejandrino was most prominent during the 13th and 14th centuries, after which time it was eclipsed by the metrically more flexible arte mayor. Juan Ruiz's Book of Good Love is one of the best-known examples of cuaderna vía, though other verse forms also appear in the work.
Latin goliardic: o o o s S s s | o o o s S s
Polish alexandrine: o o o o o S s | o o o s S s
s=unstressed syllable
Though looser instances of this (nominally) 13-syllable line were occasionally used in Polish literature, it was Mikołaj Rej and Jan Kochanowski who, in the 16th century, introduced the syllabically strict line as a vehicle for major works.
iambic hexameter: s S s S s S | s S s S s S (s)
dactylic tetrameter: S s s S s s | S s s S s s (s)
Czech alexandrine: o o s S s o | o o s S s o (s)
o o o o o o | o o o o o o
Although deriving from native folk versification, it is possible that this line, and the related 6-syllable line, were influenced by Latin or Romance examples. When employed in 4-line or 8-line stanzas and rhyming in couplets, this is called the Hungarian alexandrine; it is the Hungarian heroic verse form. Beginning with the 16th-century verse of Bálint Balassi, this became the dominant Hungarian verse form.
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