Alexandrine

The Alexandrians is a process developed in French literature and from there taken over in other literatures meter. In the German literature it was common, especially in the Baroque era.

After the German versification it corresponds typically a sechshebigen iamb with a caesura after the sixth syllable, ie exactly in the middle. It therefore takes a firm accent on his sixth and twelfth syllable. A distinction between heroic Alexandrine with continuous elegiac couplets and Alexandrians with others, for example umarmendem rhyme. Sometimes the Alexandrians is misleading referred to as iambic hexameter - with the sechshebigen, ancient hexameter, consisting of several dactyls, he has nothing to do.

An example of it is vanity by Andreas Gryphius:

French literature

The Alexandrians (vers alexandrin ) received its name from the written around 1180 Alexander novel, in which he is first used throughout. At a current meter it was not until centuries later.

The French alexandrine is one of twelve syllables in male and 13 in female syllables Send; the twelfth syllable is always stressed so. A mandatory caesura after the sixth syllable also stressed each line is divided into two half- verses ( hémistiches ). One other regular internal rhythm, for example in iambic is possible but not binding and will not be sought. This and the fact that the stressed syllable before the caesura, although always a word, but not necessarily completed a unit of meaning, gives the French alexandrine a flexible speech characteristic style.

The Alexandrians rose only during the Renaissance the dominant verse form and has now been used in lyric, epic and drama. The pieces of the French classics of the 17th century, for example, Pierre Corneille, Racine, or ( at least partially ) Molière are written in rhyming pairs Alexandrians. Likewise, most of the pieces, for example, Voltaire in the 18th century and even Victor Hugo in the first half of the 19th century also in poetry, for example, in the renewing him symbolists Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé, dominated it until well into the 19th century.

Today, he is historically and has antiquated and weird at the eventual use. For example, if in the French comic Asterix and Cleopatra, a resident of Alexandria, the Gallic Druid Getafix greeted with the words: " Je suis, mon cher ami, / très heureux de te voir. " And Getafix explains to his friends: " C'est un Alexandrian "( " / very happy to see I am, my dear friend you. " - " This is a Alexandrians "! )

German literature

In the 17th century the Alexandrian came from the then relevant French literature before to Germany. In the coined by Martin Opitz form it is in the poetry of the Baroque period, especially in Baroque sonnet, the dominant verse form. Andreas Gryphius using it masterfully in his sonnets, but partly also in the dramatic poems.

The Alexandrians is particularly suitable for concise formulation of paradoxes or antitheses, such as in epigrams. An example from The cherubinische wanderer of Angelus Silesius:

Also in the seal of the Enlightenment and of the Alexandrians Anacreontics is often used. Goethe wrote his early comedies in this verse, as well as its transmission of Voltaire's Mahomet piece. On the occasion of its performance Schiller wrote to him:

" The characteristic of the Alexandrian, to separate into two equal halves, and the nature of Reims, from two Alexandrians a couplet to make [" couplet " ], determine not only the whole language, they also determine the inner spirit of these pieces, the characters, the attitude, the behavior of the people. All this raises under the control of the opposition, and how the violin of the musicians directs the movements of the dancers, as well as the two-legged nature of the alexandrine the movements of the mind and thoughts. The mind is continuously asked and every feeling, every thought forced into this form as in the bed of Procrustes. "

In the era of storm and stress and under the influence of Lessing's criticism of the French theater, the tendency of the German alexandrine to monotony and artificiality was perceived as negative. He was then replaced in the dramatic literature of Weimar Classicism and the time of the coming from England, freer and more dynamic blank verse.

In fact, the flexible rhythms of the French alexandrine is easily lost in German. Why have experienced translators - as Paul Celan in his paraphrase of Rimbaud 's famous long poem The Drunken Boat (Le Bateau Ivre ) - complements the verse by an additional unstressed syllable before the caesura:

Hans Magnus Enzensberger was in 1979 on the occasion of his translation of Moliere's Misanthrope "that the Alexandrians in German is not good for the theater (...) This is not only on grounds which are in the tradition. , It is related to the syntactic structure of our language together which is the symmetry requirements of this versification opposes. " Enzensberger used in his translation " a less elevation, and bolted, strained sound almost disappears by itself. "

English poetry

Even in the English literature of the Alexandrian plays a subordinate role. Michael Drayton using him in his extensive work poly - Olbion ( 1613-1622 ). Chapman used it in its most transmission of Homer's Iliad ( 1611), but switched to the Odyssey ( 1614-15 ) to the more flexible heroic couplet, a iambic pentameter rhyming.

In the Spanish and Italian literature, where the ten - or elfsilbige iambic pentameter ( decasillabo, hendecasyllable ) prevailed, of the Alexandrians was not included.

Variations

In order to achieve a particular effect, the sechshebige Alexandrians sometimes occurs in conjunction with the fünfhebigen blank verse. Edmund Spenser uses it in the epic poem Fairie Queene (1589-1596) to complete the " Spenserstrophe " ( Spenserian stanza ), so it gives the verse a worn and festive finale. Even Lord Byron's epic poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is written in Spenserstrophen.

In his Essay on Criticism (1711 ) mocks Alexander Pope: