# Hudibrastic

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**Hudibrastic** is a type of [English](/source/English_language) [verse](/source/Poetry) named for [Samuel Butler's](/source/Samuel_Butler_(poet)) *[Hudibras](/source/Hudibras)*, published in parts from 1663 to 1678.[1] For the poem, Butler invented a [mock-heroic](/source/Mock-heroic) verse structure.

## Description

Instead of [pentameter](/source/Pentameter), the lines were written in [iambic tetrameter](/source/Iambic_tetrameter). The [rhyme scheme](/source/Rhyme_scheme) is the same as in [heroic verse](/source/Heroic_verse) (AA BB CC DD), but Butler used frequent [feminine rhyme](/source/Feminine_rhyme) for humor.[2]

## Example

The first fourteen lines of *Hudibras* illustrate the verse form:

- When civil dudgeon first grew high,
- And men fell out they knew not why;
- When hard words, jealousies, and fears,
- Set folks together by the ears,
- And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
- For Dame Religion, as for punk;
- Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
- Though not a man of them knew wherefore:
- When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded
- With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded,
- And pulpit, drum ecclesiastick,
- Was beat with fist, instead of a stick;
- Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling,
- And out he rode a colonelling.

## Further description

The rhyme of "swear for" with "wherefore" and "ecclesiastic" with "(in)stead of a stick" are surprising, unnatural, and humorous. Additionally, the rhyme of "-don dwelling" with "a colonelling" is strained to the point of breaking, again for humorous effect. Further, the rhyme scheme in a Hudibrastic will imply inappropriate comparisons. For example, the rhyme of "drunk" and "punk" (meaning "a prostitute") implies that the religious ecstasies of the [Puritans](/source/Puritan) were the same as that of sexual intercourse and inebriation.

The hudibrastic has been traditionally used for [satire](/source/Satire). [Jonathan Swift](/source/Jonathan_Swift), for example, wrote nearly all of his poetry in hudibrastics.

## Other usage

In 18th-century usage, "hudibrastic" could also be used grandiloquently to indicate any general satire, as in its use for *[The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror](/source/The_Caricature_Magazine_or_Hudibrastic_Mirror)* published by [Thomas Tegg](/source/Thomas_Tegg) between 1807 and 1819.

## Notes

1. Cox, Michael, editor, *The Concise Oxford Chronology of English Literature*, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-860634-6

1. Baldick, Christopher (1996). "[Hudibrastic verse](http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t56.e465)" in *The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms*. Oxford Reference Online (subscription required), Oxford University Press. Retrieved on February 27, 2007.

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