[207] Clerihews

The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.

Sir Christopher Wren
Said, 'I am going to dine with some men.
If anyone calls
Say I am designing St. Paul's.'

John Stuart Mill,
By a mighty effort of will,
Overcame his natural bonhomie
And wrote 'Principles of Political Economy.'

What I like about Clive
Is that he is no longer alive.
There is a great deal to be said
For being dead.

Edward the Confessor
Slept under the dresser.
When that began to pall,
He slept in the hall.

Chapman & Hall
Swore not at all.
Mr Chapman's yea was yea,
And Mr Hall's nay was nay.

It was a weakness of Voltaire's
To forget to say his prayers,
And one which to his shame
He never overcame.

    -- Edmund Clerihew Bentley

from 'Biography for Beginners', 1905.

Not many poets can lay claim to inventing a poetic form; still fewer have had
forms named after them. Lucky old ECB :-).

thomas.

PS. Again, having such an odd middle name helps :-)

[Biography]

Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956) is remembered mainly for his classic
detective story Trent's Last Case and for the verse form that was named after
him - the clerihew. It was at the age of sixteen, while he was at St. Paul's
School in London, that Bentley first started writing clerihews, as a diversion
from school work. G. K. Chesterton, Bentley's life-long friend, was at St.
Paul's at the same time, and he too wrote clerihews.

Here is one of Bentley's original clerihews from this period:
    Sir Humphrey Davy
    Abominated gravy.
    He lived in the odium
    Of having discovered sodium.

Bentley's first collection of verse in this vein was published in 1905 as
Biography For Beginners. Further collections appeared in 1929 and in 1939. It
was soon after publication of the first volume that the name 'clerihew' became
applied to this particular form of light verse. What exactly is a clerihew?
Frances Stillman in The Poet's Manual and Rhyming Dictionary defines it as 'a
humorous pseudo-biographical quatrain, rhymed as two couplets, with line of
uneven length more or less in the rhythm of prose'. Add to this, that the name
of the subject usually ends the first or, less often, the second line, and that
the humour of the clerihew is whimsical rather than satiric, and there you have
a complete definition.

    -- http://thinks.com/words/clerihew.htm

From: Martin Julian DeMello <martindemello@>

And, of course, Bentley himself was not left unclerihewed:

  Incidentally,
  Mr. Bentley
  Will someone write a Clerihew
  When they bury you?

m.

From: "Albert Melcher" <73121.630@>

Do you have the whole clerihew that Bentley wrote about Sir John
Vanbrugh, the English architect,?
I think that the last two lines are something like this:
"Lay heavy on him, Earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee".

Thanks
Ablert G. Melcher
Amelcher1@
Demver Colorado

From: ianflanagan@





Just found your site.  I love clerihews - the form is addictive and much
copied, but Bentley and Chesterton remain the masters.  I have one of my
own to offer, about the man himself:

Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Poked fun, gently,
But could be terse
In his verse.

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