Robert Marteau and the French Blank Alexandrine

Thanks to the inspiring Three Thousand Years of Hebrews Versification: Essays in Comparative Prosody by Benjamin Harshav (Yale University Press, 2014) and in particular its first chapter, “Basic Aspects of Meter and Rhythm,” it is possible to take a fresh look at the history of French verse and its elusive relations between meter, rhythm, and poetic breath. In this essay I will examine the features of the rhymed alexandrine (the classical type of French verse), the various attempts to go beyond its limits, and the recent creation of a blank alexandrine, which blends rhythmic balance with ample phrasing and syntactic scope.