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Alexandrian verse

Movement
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A Hellenistic poetic style marked by erudition, intricate allusions, mythological references, and refined, sometimes obscure, artifice.

Detailed Definition
Alexandrian verse refers broadly to poetry composed in the Alexandrine meter—traditionally a 12-syllable iambic line with a medial caesura—dominant in French poetry from the 16th century onward; it conveys stateliness and balance, used by Corneille, Racine, and Baudelaire.
Example
Example in poetry:
Alexandrian verse (or Alexandrine) is a 12-syllable iambic line with a caesura at the sixth syllable; used by Racine: “Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n’ai point d’autre crainte,” or in English: “And sings a solitary song that whistles in the wind.”
Additional Notes
Poem in Alcaic meter (four-line stanza, specific metrical pattern). Named for Alcaeus. Used by Horace. Pattern: hendecasyllable, hendecasyllable, nine-syllable, decasyllable. See: Alcaic stanza.
Also Known As
Egyptian Greek verse Hellenistic poetry Library poetry Scholarly verse
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