Home › Glossary › Letter A

Alexandrin

French
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

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 French verse of 12 syllables divided into two hemistiches of 6 syllables each, separated by a caesura. The dominant metric form of classical French poetry.

Detailed Definition
The alexandrin is the defining meter of French poetry, used extensively from the 16th to the 19th century. Its two-hemistich structure creates a natural balance suited to lyric and dramatic expression. Racine, Corneille, Hugo, and Baudelaire all exploited it masterfully. It accommodates both epic solemnity and emotional subtlety, explaining its dominance in classical tragedy, epic poetry, and Romantic verse. Victor Hugo famously loosened its rules by breaking the traditional caesura, liberating French poetry toward modernism.
Example
Example in poetry:
Racine's famous line from Phèdre, "La fille de Minos et de Pasiphaé," perfectly illustrates the alexandrin's 6+6 hemistich structure, with the caesura falling after "Minos" creating two balanced rhythmic units; Victor Hugo's romantic alexandrin in Hernani breaks the classical caesura with his trimètre "Vous êtes mon lion superbe et généreux," redistributing the twelve syllables into 4+4+4 and scandalizing conservative audiences; Baudelaire opens Les Fleurs du Mal with the alexandrin "La sottise, l'erreur, le péché, la lésine," using the line's length to accumulate a list of human vices with mounting weight; A student learning French versification should scan "Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage" by Du Bellay, noting how the caesura after "Ulysse" divides the meditation on travel and homecoming; The alexandrin's dominance in French classical tragedy meant that Corneille's entire theatrical output, including the famous "Va, je ne te hais point" from Le Cid, was composed in this single meter; Verlaine's experiments with the alexandrin in Romances sans paroles show how a poet can subvert the meter's expected rhetorical weight by choosing light, musical subject matter that sits unexpectedly within the grand classical frame.
Additional Notes
Alexandrin is the central metre of classical French poetry and indispensable for understanding Racine, Corneille, Hugo, and much of French dramatic verse. Students should pay close attention to the traditional medial césure, since the balance between hemistiches contributes heavily to rhetorical force and musical control. French metrics count sounded syllables rather than English-style stress patterns, making pronunciation crucial. Compare with décasyllabe and octosyllabe to understand historical shifts in preferred French poetic rhythm and the movement from medieval flexibility toward classical regularity.
Also Known As
Vers alexandrin Alexandrine verse
Skip to main content