Sri Aurobindo

Letters on Poetry and Art

SABCL - Volume 27

Part 1. Poetry and its Creation
Section 3. Poetic Technique
English Metres

The Loose Alexandrine

I do not understand how {{0}}this[[“The novelty (in English) [of Robert Bridges’s “loose alexandrine”] is to make the number of syllables the fixt base of the metre; but these are the effective syllables, those which pronunciation easily slurs or combines with following syllables being treated as metrically ineffective. The line consists of twelve metrically effective syllables; and within this constant scheme the metre allows of any variation in the number and placing of the accents. Thus the rhythm obtained is purely accentual, in accordance with the genius of the English language; but a new freedom has been achieved within the confines of a new kind of discipline.” — Lascelles Abercrombie, Poetry: Its Music and Meaning (London: Oxford University Press, 1932), p. 35.]] can be called an accentual rhythm except in the sense that all English rhythm, prose or verse, is accentual. What one usually means by accentual verse is verse with a fixed number of accents for each line, but here accents can be of any number and placed anywhere as it would be in a prose cut up into lines. The only distinctive feature is thus of the number of “effective” syllables. The result is a kind of free verse movement with a certain irregular regularity in the lengths of the lines.

1936