Alexandrine Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
- Alternate meaning: Alexandrine of Denmark
An
alexandrine is a
metrical verse of
iambic hexameter - a line of six feet or measures ("iambs"), each of which has two syllables with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, or a short syllable followed by a long syllable, as in the word
delay. Alexandrines are common in the
German literature of the
Baroque period and in
French poetry of the early modern and modern periods and much less common in
English, which is fond of an
iambic pentameter or 5-foot verse. In the poetry of
Edmund Spenser's
The Faerie Queene 8 lines of pentameter are followed by an alexandrine, the 6-foot line slowing the regular rhythm of the 5-foot lines.
Undoubtedly the most famous Alexandrine in the English language is a rhyming couplet of Alexander Pope's, in which the first line is in iambic pentameter and the second line is an alexandrine:
- A needless alexandrine ends the song
- that like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along.
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