Clerihew

The four-line comic biography, rhyming AAAB, invented by a schoolboy and named for him.

Specifications & Metrics

type

Light verse form

origin

English public school, 1890s

originator

Edmund Clerihew Bentley

meter

Irregular, deliberately clumsy

lines count

4

Core Principles & Analysis

• Edmund Clerihew Bentley invented it as a schoolboy in the 1890s.
• Four lines rhyming AAAB, the first naming the subject.
• Its rule: the biographical fact must be trivial and the rhyme slightly forced.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Clerihew