Clerihew

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A Clerihew (or clerihew) is a very specific kind of short biographical humorous verse.

Contents 1 Structure and style 2 Practitioners 3 Examples 4 Notes 5 External links

Structure and style

A Clerihew has the following properties:

• It is biographical and usually whimsical, showing the subject from an unusual point of view; but it is hardly ever satirical, abusive or obscene
• It has four lines of irregular length (for comic effect); the third and fourth lines are usually longer than the first two
• The rhyme structure is AABB; the subject matter and wording are often humorously contrived in order to achieve a rhyme
• The first line consists solely (or almost solely) of the subject's name.

Clerihews are not satirical or abusive, but they target famous individuals and reposition them in an absurd or commonplace setting, often with an over-simplified and slightly garbled description (similar to the schoolboy style of 1066 and All That).

The unbalanced and unpolished poetic meter and line length parody the limerick (NPEPP 219), and the clerihew form also parodies the eulogy.

Practitioners

The form was invented by and is named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley. As a student, Bentley invented the clerihew on Humphry Davy (see below) during his studies, and it was a great hit with his friends. The first use of the word in print was in 1928.^[1] Clerihew went on to publish a book of his own clerihews.

Bentley's friend, G. K. Chesterton, was also a practitioner of the clerihew and one of the sources of its popularity. However, other serious authors also produced clerihews, including W. H. Auden, and it remains a popular humorous form among other writers and the general public.

Examples

The first ever Clerihew:

Sir Humphry Davy

Abominated gravy.

He lived in the odium

Of having discovered sodium.

Other classic Clerihews:

Edgar Allan Poe

Was extremely fond of roe.

He always liked to chew some,

While writing anything gruesome.

Sir Christopher Wren

Dined out with some men.

"If anyone calls,

I'm designing St Paul's."

Daniel Defoe

Lived a long time ago.

He had nothing to do, so

He wrote Robinson Crusoe.

John Stuart Mill,

By a mighty effort of will,

Overcame his natural bonhomie

And wrote Principles of Political Economy.

Sir James Dewar

Is better than you are.

None of you asses

Can liquefy gasses! [1]

"No, Sir", said General Sherman,

"I didn't enjoy the sermon;

Nor I didn't git any

Kick out of the litany."

George the Third

Ought never to have occurred.

One can only wonder

At so grotesque a blunder.

Clerihews are occasionally not about a particular person, as in this example by Bentley which introduced his book of clerihews:

The Art of Biography

Is different from Geography.

Geography is about Maps,

But Biography is about Chaps.

Notes

1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary

• Teague, Frances. "Clerihew" in Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan, eds., The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 219-220.

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