vers mesurés à l’antique

Vers mesurés à l'antique refers to poetry written in classical quantitative metres, which are based on the length of syllables (long or short) rather than stress. This style of poetry was an attempt to emulate the unity of verse and music believed to have existed in classical antiquity.123

This poetic form was closely associated with musique mesurée, a style of French vocal music where note durations corresponded to the metre of the poetic text. The goal was to revive the perceived harmony between music and poetry found in ancient Greece and Rome. This movement was championed by poets like Jean-Antoine de Baïf and Pierre de Ronsard. While quantitative verse was the basis of Greek and Latin poetry, its adaptation to modern languages like English has had limited success due to differences in language structure.312