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French alexandrine

January 06, 2023

The French alexandrine (French: alexandrin) is a syllabic poetic metre 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.

Molière
Jean Racine
Molière and Racine, perhaps the greatest writers of classical alexandrines in comedy and tragedy respectively.

12th to 15th centuries

Genesis

According to verse historian Mikhail Gasparov, the French alexandrine developed from the Ambrosian octosyllable, 

 × – u – × – u × Aeterne rerum conditor

by gradually losing the final two syllables, 

 × – u – × – Aeterne rerum cond (construct)

then doubling this line in a syllabic context with phrasal stress rather than length as a marker.[1]

Rise and decline

 
Alexander the Great in a diving bell: a scene from the line's namesake, the Roman d'Alexandre.

The earliest recorded use of alexandrines is in the Medieval French poem Le Pèlerinage de Charlemagne of 1150, but the name derives from their more famous use in part of the Roman d'Alexandre of 1170.[2] L. E. Kastner states:

From about the year 1200 the Alexandrine began to supplant the decasyllabic line as the metre of the chansons de geste, and at the end of the thirteenth century it had gained so completely the upper hand as the epic line that several of the old chansons in the decasyllabic line were turned into Alexandrines...[3]

These early alexandrines were slightly looser rhythmically than those reintroduced in the 16th century. Significantly, they allowed an "epic caesura" — an extrametrical mute e at the close of the first hemistich (half-line), as examplified in this line from the medieval Li quatre fils Aymon: 

o o o o o S(e) o o o o o S Or sunt li quatre frère | sus el palais plenier[4] o=any syllable; S=stressed syllable; (e)=optional mute e; |=caesura

However, toward the end of the 14th century, the line was "totally abandoned, being ousted by its old rival the decasyllabic";[5] and despite occasional isolated attempts, would not regain its stature for almost 200 years.[6]

16th to 18th centuries

The alexandrine was resurrected in the middle of the 16th century by the poets of the Pléiade, notably Étienne Jodelle (tragedy), Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (narrative),[7] Jean-Antoine de Baïf (lyric), and Pierre de Ronsard.[8] Later, Pierre Corneille introduced its use in comedy.[9] It was metrically stricter, allowing no epic caesura: 

o o o o o S | o o o o o S (e)

Typically, each hemistich also holds one secondary accent which may occur on any of the first five syllables, most frequently on the third; this frequently balanced four-part structure resulted in one of several monikers for the line: alexandrin tétramètre (in contradistinction to the trimètre or alexandrin ternaire described below).

Often called the "classical alexandrine", vers héroïque, or grands vers, it became the dominant long line of French verse up to the end of the 19th century,[7] and was "elevated to the status of national symbol and eventually came to typify French poetry overall".[10] The classical alexandrine is always rhymed. The règle d'alternance des rimes (rule of alternation of rhymes), which was a tendency in some poets before the Pléiade, was "firmly established by Ronsard in the sixteenth century and rigorously decreed by Malherbe in the seventeenth."[11] It states that "a masculine rime cannot be immediately followed by a different masculine rime, or a feminine rime by a different feminine rime."[12] This rule resulted in the preponderance of three rhyme schemes, though others are possible. (Masculine rhymes are given in lowercase, and feminine in CAPS):[13]

  • rimes plates or rimes suivies: aaBB
  • rimes croisées: aBaB (or AbAb)
  • rimes embrassées aBBa (or AbbA)

These lines by Corneille (with formal paraphrase) exemplify classical alexandrines with rimes suivies:

Some members of La Pléiade

Loosening strategies

The classical alexandrine was early recognized as having a prose-like effect, for example by Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay.[15] This in part explains the strictness with which its prosodic rules (e.g. medial caesura and end rhyme) were kept; they were felt necessary to preserve its distinction and unity as verse.[16] Nevertheless, several strategies for reducing the strictness of the verse form have been employed over the centuries.

Alexandrin ternaire

Although used in exceptional cases by some 17th-century French poets,[17] Victor Hugo popularized the alexandrin ternaire (also referred to as trimètre) as an alternative rhythm to the classical alexandrine. His famous self-descriptive line:

exemplifies the structure of the alexandrin ternaire, which preserves the medial caesura with a word break, but de-emphasizes it by surrounding it with two stronger phrase breaks after syllables four and eight: 

o o o S | o o ¦ o S | o o o S (e) |=strong caesura; ¦=word break

Although generally embraced by the French Romantics and Symbolists, the alexandrin ternaire remained a supplemental line, used within a classical alexandrine context and forming no more than one quarter of the alexandrine lines written during this time.[19] Passages of classical alexandrines were still written by these poets, as for example this rimes croisées quatrain by Charles Baudelaire:

Vers libres, libéré, libre

These three similar terms (in French vers libres and vers libre are homophones[21]) designate distinct historical strategies to introduce more prosodic variety into French verse. All three involve verse forms beyond just the alexandrine, but just as the alexandrine was chief among lines, it is the chief target of these modifications.

Vers libres

Vers libres (also vers libres classiques, vers mêlés, or vers irréguliers[22]) are found in a variety of minor and hybrid genres of the 17th and 18th century.[22] The works are composed of lines of various lengths, without regularity in distribution or order; however, each individual line is perfectly metrical, and the rule of alternation of rhymes is followed.[22] The result is somewhat analogous to the Pindarics of Abraham Cowley.[21] Two of the most famous works written in vers libres are Jean de La Fontaine's Fables and Molière's Amphitryon.

Vers libéré

Vers libéré was a mid-to-late-19th-century extension of the liberties begun to be taken by the Romantics with their embrace of the alexandrin ternaire. The liberties taken included the weakening, movement, and erasure of caesurae, and rejection of the rule of alternation of rhymes.[23] Although writers of vers libéré consistently continued to use rhyme, many of them accepted categories of rhyme which were previously considered "careless" or unusual.[24] The alexandrine was not their only metrical target; they also cultivated the use of vers impair — lines with an odd, rather than even, number of syllables.[24] These uneven lines, though known from earlier French verse, were relatively uncommon and helped suggest a new rhythmic register.

Vers libre
Main article: Vers libre

Vers libre is the source of the English term free verse, and is effectively identical in meaning. It can be seen as a radical extension of the tendencies of both vers libres (various and unpredictable line lengths) and vers libéré (weakening of strictures for caesura and rhymes, as well as experimentation with unusual line lengths). Its birth — for the reading public at least — can be dated exactly: 1886; in this year, editor Gustave Kahn published several seminal vers libre poems in his review La Vogue, including poems by Arthur Rimbaud (written over a decade previously) and Jules Laforgue, with more following in the next years.[25] Vers libre shed all metrical and prosodic constraints, such as verse length, rhyme, and caesura; Laforgue said, "I forget to rhyme, I forget about the number of syllables, I forget about stanzaic structure."[25]

Notes

  1. ^ Gasparov 1996, pp. 130–31.
  2. ^ Peureux 2012, p. 35.
  3. ^ Kastner 1903, p. 145.
  4. ^ Gasparov 1996, p. 131.
  5. ^ Kastner 1903, p. 146.
  6. ^ Kastner 1903, pp. 146–47.
  7. ^ a b Gasparov 1996, p. 130.
  8. ^ Kastner 1903, p. 147.
  9. ^ Kastner 1903, p. 148.
  10. ^ Peureux 2012, p. 36.
  11. ^ Flescher 1972, p. 180.
  12. ^ Kastner 1903, p. 63.
  13. ^ Kastner 1903, p. 67.
  14. ^ Corneille, Pierre (1912). Searles, Colbert (ed.). Le Cid. Boston: Ginn and Company. p. 62.
  15. ^ Peureaux 2012, p. 36.
  16. ^ Flescher 1972, p. 179.
  17. ^ Flescher 1972, p. 190, note 7.
  18. ^ Hugo, Victor (1856). Les Contemplations. Paris: Nelson, Éditeurs. p. 74.
  19. ^ Gasparov 1996, p. 133.
  20. ^ Baudelaire, Charles (1857). Les Fleurs du Mal. Paris: Poulet-Malassis et De Broise. p. 52.
  21. ^ a b Steele 1990, p. 17.
  22. ^ a b c Scott 1993c, p. 1345.
  23. ^ Scott 1993a, pp. 1343–44.
  24. ^ a b Scott 1993a, p. 1344.
  25. ^ a b Scott 1993b, p. 1344.

References

  • Flescher, Jacqueline (1972). "French". In Wimsatt, W. K. (ed.). Versification: Major Language Types. New York: New York University Press. pp. 177-90. ISBN 08147-9155-7.
  • Gasparov, M. L. (1996). Smith, G. S.; Holford-Strevens, L. (eds.). A History of European Versification. Translated by Smith, G. S.; Tarlinskaja, Marina. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-815879-3.
  • Kastner, L. E. (1903). A History of French Versification. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.
  • Peureux, Guillaume (2012). "Alexandrine". In Greene, Roland; Cushman, Stephen; et al. (eds.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (Fourth ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 35–36. ISBN 978-0-691-13334-8.
  • Scott, Clive (1993a). "Vers Libéré". In Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T.V.F.; et al. (eds.). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. New York: MJF Books. pp. 1343–44. ISBN 1-56731-152-0.
  • Scott, Clive (1993b). "Vers Libre". In Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T.V.F.; et al. (eds.). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. New York: MJF Books. pp. 1344–45. ISBN 1-56731-152-0.
  • Scott, Clive (1993c). "Vers Libres Classiques". In Preminger, Alex; Brogan, T.V.F.; et al. (eds.). The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. New York: MJF Books. p. 1345. ISBN 1-56731-152-0.
  • Steele, Timothy (1990). Missing Measures: Modern Poetry and the Revolt Against Meter. Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 1-55728-125-4.

January 06, 2023
french, alexandrine, french, alexandrin, syllabic, poetic, metre, nominally, typically, syllables, with, medial, caesura, dividing, line, into, hemistichs, half, lines, syllables, each, dominant, long, line, french, poetry, from, 17th, through, 19th, century, . The French alexandrine French alexandrin is a syllabic poetic metre 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 MoliereJean RacineMoliere and Racine perhaps the greatest writers of classical alexandrines in comedy and tragedy respectively Contents 1 12th to 15th centuries 1 1 Genesis 1 2 Rise and decline 2 16th to 18th centuries 3 Loosening strategies 3 1 Alexandrin ternaire 3 2 Vers libres libere libre 4 Notes 5 References12th to 15th centuries EditGenesis Edit According to verse historian Mikhail Gasparov the French alexandrine developed from the Ambrosian octosyllable u u Aeterne rerum conditor by gradually losing the final two syllables u Aeterne rerum cond construct then doubling this line in a syllabic context with phrasal stress rather than length as a marker 1 Rise and decline Edit Alexander the Great in a diving bell a scene from the line s namesake the Roman d Alexandre The earliest recorded use of alexandrines is in the Medieval French poem Le Pelerinage de Charlemagne of 1150 but the name derives from their more famous use in part of the Roman d Alexandre of 1170 2 L E Kastner states From about the year 1200 the Alexandrine began to supplant the decasyllabic line as the metre of the chansons de geste and at the end of the thirteenth century it had gained so completely the upper hand as the epic line that several of the old chansons in the decasyllabic line were turned into Alexandrines 3 These early alexandrines were slightly looser rhythmically than those reintroduced in the 16th century Significantly they allowed an epic caesura an extrametrical mute e at the close of the first hemistich half line as examplified in this line from the medieval Li quatre fils Aymon o o o o o S e o o o o o S Or sunt li quatre frere sus el palais plenier 4 o any syllable S stressed syllable e optional mute e caesura However toward the end of the 14th century the line was totally abandoned being ousted by its old rival the decasyllabic 5 and despite occasional isolated attempts would not regain its stature for almost 200 years 6 16th to 18th centuries EditThe alexandrine was resurrected in the middle of the 16th century by the poets of the Pleiade notably Etienne Jodelle tragedy Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas narrative 7 Jean Antoine de Baif lyric and Pierre de Ronsard 8 Later Pierre Corneille introduced its use in comedy 9 It was metrically stricter allowing no epic caesura o o o o o S o o o o o S e Pierre Corneille Typically each hemistich also holds one secondary accent which may occur on any of the first five syllables most frequently on the third this frequently balanced four part structure resulted in one of several monikers for the line alexandrin tetrametre in contradistinction to the trimetre or alexandrin ternaire described below Often called the classical alexandrine vers heroique or grands vers it became the dominant long line of French verse up to the end of the 19th century 7 and was elevated to the status of national symbol and eventually came to typify French poetry overall 10 The classical alexandrine is always rhymed The regle d alternance des rimes rule of alternation of rhymes which was a tendency in some poets before the Pleiade was firmly established by Ronsard in the sixteenth century and rigorously decreed by Malherbe in the seventeenth 11 It states that a masculine rime cannot be immediately followed by a different masculine rime or a feminine rime by a different feminine rime 12 This rule resulted in the preponderance of three rhyme schemes though others are possible Masculine rhymes are given in lowercase and feminine in CAPS 13 rimes plates or rimes suivies aaBB rimes croisees aBaB or AbAb rimes embrassees aBBa or AbbA These lines by Corneille with formal paraphrase exemplify classical alexandrines with rimes suivies Nous partimes cinq cents mais par un prompt renfort Nous nous vimes trois mille en arrivant au port Tant a nous voir marcher avec un tel visage Les plus epouvantes reprenaient de courage 14 As five hundred we left but soon we gained support To three thousand we grew as we approached the port Thus seeing us all march in league and with such favor The fear melted away the throng becoming braver Corneille Le Cid Act IV scene 3 lines 1259 62Some members of La Pleiade Pierre de Ronsard Etienne Jodelle Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas Jean Antoine de BaifLoosening strategies EditThe classical alexandrine was early recognized as having a prose like effect for example by Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay 15 This in part explains the strictness with which its prosodic rules e g medial caesura and end rhyme were kept they were felt necessary to preserve its distinction and unity as verse 16 Nevertheless several strategies for reducing the strictness of the verse form have been employed over the centuries Alexandrin ternaire Edit Although used in exceptional cases by some 17th century French poets 17 Victor Hugo popularized the alexandrin ternaire also referred to as trimetre as an alternative rhythm to the classical alexandrine His famous self descriptive line J ai disloque ce grand niais d alexandrin 18 I dislocate the great nitwit alexandrin Hugo XXVI Quelques mots a un autre line 84exemplifies the structure of the alexandrin ternaire which preserves the medial caesura with a word break but de emphasizes it by surrounding it with two stronger phrase breaks after syllables four and eight o o o S o o o S o o o S e strong caesura word break Although generally embraced by the French Romantics and Symbolists the alexandrin ternaire remained a supplemental line used within a classical alexandrine context and forming no more than one quarter of the alexandrine lines written during this time 19 Passages of classical alexandrines were still written by these poets as for example this rimes croisees quatrain by Charles Baudelaire La tres chere etait nue et connaissant mon cœur Elle n avait garde que ses bijoux sonores Dont le riche attirail lui donnait l air vainqueur Qu ont dans leurs jours heureux les esclaves des Maures 20 My most darling was bare but she knew my desire So her bright jewels she wore her tinkling chains her treasure Such an air of command in her golden attire Like to a Moor s slave girl in the days of her pleasure Baudelaire Les Bijoux lines 1 4Vers libres libere libre Edit These three similar terms in French vers libres and vers libre are homophones 21 designate distinct historical strategies to introduce more prosodic variety into French verse All three involve verse forms beyond just the alexandrine but just as the alexandrine was chief among lines it is the chief target of these modifications Vers libresVers libres also vers libres classiques vers meles or vers irreguliers 22 are found in a variety of minor and hybrid genres of the 17th and 18th century 22 The works are composed of lines of various lengths without regularity in distribution or order however each individual line is perfectly metrical and the rule of alternation of rhymes is followed 22 The result is somewhat analogous to the Pindarics of Abraham Cowley 21 Two of the most famous works written in vers libres are Jean de La Fontaine s Fables and Moliere s Amphitryon Vers libereVers libere was a mid to late 19th century extension of the liberties begun to be taken by the Romantics with their embrace of the alexandrin ternaire The liberties taken included the weakening movement and erasure of caesurae and rejection of the rule of alternation of rhymes 23 Although writers of vers libere consistently continued to use rhyme many of them accepted categories of rhyme which were previously considered careless or unusual 24 The alexandrine was not their only metrical target they also cultivated the use of vers impair lines with an odd rather than even number of syllables 24 These uneven lines though known from earlier French verse were relatively uncommon and helped suggest a new rhythmic register Vers libreMain article Vers libre Vers libre is the source of the English term free verse and is effectively identical in meaning It can be seen as a radical extension of the tendencies of both vers libres various and unpredictable line lengths and vers libere weakening of strictures for caesura and rhymes as well as experimentation with unusual line lengths Its birth for the reading public at least can be dated exactly 1886 in this year editor Gustave Kahn published several seminal vers libre poems in his review La Vogue including poems by Arthur Rimbaud written over a decade previously and Jules Laforgue with more following in the next years 25 Vers libre shed all metrical and prosodic constraints such as verse length rhyme and caesura Laforgue said I forget to rhyme I forget about the number of syllables I forget about stanzaic structure 25 Jean de La Fontaine 1621 1695 composed vers libres Paul Verlaine 1844 1896 composed vers libere Jules Laforgue 1860 1887 composed vers libre Notes Edit Gasparov 1996 pp 130 31 Peureux 2012 p 35 Kastner 1903 p 145 Gasparov 1996 p 131 Kastner 1903 p 146 Kastner 1903 pp 146 47 a b Gasparov 1996 p 130 Kastner 1903 p 147 Kastner 1903 p 148 Peureux 2012 p 36 Flescher 1972 p 180 Kastner 1903 p 63 Kastner 1903 p 67 Corneille Pierre 1912 Searles Colbert ed Le Cid Boston Ginn and Company p 62 Peureaux 2012 p 36 sfn error no target CITEREFPeureaux2012 help Flescher 1972 p 179 Flescher 1972 p 190 note 7 Hugo Victor 1856 Les Contemplations Paris Nelson Editeurs p 74 Gasparov 1996 p 133 Baudelaire Charles 1857 Les Fleurs du Mal Paris Poulet Malassis et De Broise p 52 a b Steele 1990 p 17 a b c Scott 1993c p 1345 Scott 1993a pp 1343 44 a b Scott 1993a p 1344 a b Scott 1993b p 1344 References EditFlescher Jacqueline 1972 French In Wimsatt W K ed Versification Major Language Types New York New York University Press pp 177 90 ISBN 08147 9155 7 Gasparov M L 1996 Smith G S Holford Strevens L eds A History of European Versification Translated by Smith G S Tarlinskaja Marina Oxford Clarendon Press ISBN 0 19 815879 3 Kastner L E 1903 A History of French Versification Oxford The Clarendon Press Peureux Guillaume 2012 Alexandrine In Greene Roland Cushman Stephen et al eds The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics Fourth ed Princeton NJ Princeton University Press pp 35 36 ISBN 978 0 691 13334 8 Scott Clive 1993a Vers Libere In Preminger Alex Brogan T V F et al eds The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics New York MJF Books pp 1343 44 ISBN 1 56731 152 0 Scott Clive 1993b Vers Libre In Preminger Alex Brogan T V F et al eds The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics New York MJF Books pp 1344 45 ISBN 1 56731 152 0 Scott Clive 1993c Vers Libres Classiques In Preminger Alex Brogan T V F et al eds The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics New York MJF Books p 1345 ISBN 1 56731 152 0 Steele Timothy 1990 Missing Measures Modern Poetry and the Revolt Against Meter Fayetteville AR University of Arkansas Press ISBN 1 55728 125 4 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title French alexandrine amp oldid 1098033472, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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