Alexandrine
Poetry & prosodyThe twelve-syllable line, king meter of classical French poetry, traditionally cut at the hemistich.
Example
"A needless alexandrine ends the song / That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along."
The alexandrine is the French twelve-syllable line — Racine's, Hugo's, Baudelaire's. In its classical form it splits into two six-syllable hemistichs separated by the caesura, which imposes a central breath.
Its prestige comes from its amplitude: twelve syllables give room for a complete thought, an oratorical period, a natural binary swing. The Romantics and then the Symbolists loosened it (three-beat trimeters, straddled caesuras) before free verse dethroned it — without ever erasing it: its occasional return inside a free poem still produces instant solemnity. Counting it requires mastering the mute e, diaeresis and synaeresis. (In English prosody, "alexandrine" names the iambic hexameter line.)
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