Iambic Hexameter
Quick answer: Iambic hexameter, the alexandrine, is a line of six iambs. See scanned examples, hear the rhythm, and learn why it closes every Spenserian stanza.
Iambic hexameter is a line of six iambs: six da-DUM pairs, twelve syllables, six beats. In English it is usually called an alexandrine, a name borrowed from medieval French romances about Alexander the Great that used the twelve syllable line. It is the grandest common line length in English, one foot beyond the pentameter, and that extra foot changes everything: the line slows, spreads and gains a processional sweep.
English never adopted the hexameter as its staple, that place belongs to pentameter, but French poetry did: the alexandrine is to French verse what pentameter is to English, the line of Racine and the whole classical theatre. English poets therefore use hexameters mostly as special effects, single long waves inside shorter-lined poems, or as deliberate homage to French and classical models.
How It Works
Twelve syllables is a long breath, so alexandrines almost always carry a marked pause near the middle, splitting the line into two balanced halves of three beats each. An invented example, pause marked by the comma: the SLOW | barge DRAWS | its WAKE, || aCROSS | the EVEning WA | ter HOME. The symmetry gives the line a stately, tidal movement that shorter lines cannot imitate.
That very balance is the danger: a poem of unbroken alexandrines can march with too even a tread. French poets counter this with elaborate rules about pause placement; English poets mostly avoid sustained hexameter and use the line where its slowness is expressive.
Where You Will See It
The most famous English use is structural: Spenser ended every stanza of 'The Faerie Queene' with an alexandrine after eight pentameters, a long final wave that closes each stanza like a door swinging shut, and the Spenserian stanza carried that design to Keats and Shelley. Drayton's 'Poly-Olbion' is the heroic experiment in sustained English alexandrines, all fifteen thousand of them. Pope, in 'An Essay on Criticism', teased the line's tendency to drag, describing the needless alexandrine as a wounded snake. Bridges and Swinburne revived the six beat line for particular music in the nineteenth century.
How to Use It in Your Own Poems
Treat the hexameter as an instrument of arrival. A single alexandrine at the end of a pentameter stanza, Spenser's trick, gives closure you can feel in the chest. Inside free verse, one twelve syllable line among shorter ones reads as a held note. If you attempt sustained alexandrines, move the mid-line pause around and let some lines run past it, or the seesaw takes over. The line suits panoramas, processions, rivers, aftermaths: subjects with breadth. For close-up urgency, choose something shorter.
What poets can take from this
- Use a single alexandrine to close a stanza when you want an audible final wave.
- Plan the mid-line pause deliberately, and vary its position across lines.
- Reserve hexameters for breadth: landscapes, processions, endings, long thoughts.
- Keep the twelve syllables clean of clutter; long lines expose weak words mercilessly.
- Read French alexandrines aloud, even without fluent French, to hear the line's balance.
Try it yourself
Write a poem of three stanzas, each stanza four lines of iambic pentameter followed by one alexandrine, describing a river approaching, reaching and passing a city.
Questions
Is an alexandrine the same as iambic hexameter?
In English usage, effectively yes: alexandrine names the twelve syllable, six beat iambic line. In French prosody the alexandrine is defined by syllable count and pause rather than by feet, since French verse does not use stress feet.
Why did English poetry prefer pentameter to hexameter?
The six beat line splits naturally into two equal halves, which grows predictable over long stretches, and its length exceeds the comfortable spoken breath. Pentameter's odd, indivisible five beats proved more flexible for sustained verse.
What is a Spenserian stanza?
A nine line stanza rhyming ababbcbcc, with eight lines of iambic pentameter closed by an alexandrine. Spenser invented it for 'The Faerie Queene', and Keats, Shelley and Byron all borrowed it.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working poets. Updated July 2026.
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