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Hudibrastic
"1. of, pertaining to, or resembling the
style of
Samuel Butler's Hudibras (published in 1663-78),
a mock-heroic poem written in tetrameter couplets."
(Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the
English Language - Gramercy Books)
"In English full-rhyme (or perfect rhyme) occurs
when two or more words or phrases share the same
last stressed vowel and all sounds following that vowel.
If the last stressed vowel is in the last syllable, so that
both halves of the rhyme are stressed (CAT/BAT,
aBOARD/igNORED, in my beLIEF/that's TeneRIFE),
the rhyme is unstressed (or feminine). There is no limit
to how many unstressed syllables may follow the
stressed vowel, but if there are two or more the rhyme
will tend to sound comic, and the tendency increases
with the number of unstressed syllables. Eventually the
comedy becomes silliness, which may remain funny,
especially if half the rhyme is made up from mono-
syllables whose stress pattern is slightly wrenched, as
W.S. Gilbert's "lot o' news/hypoteneuse" (N1041) or
Byron's "merry in/heroine" (O2.330/N788);: such silly
rhyming is called hudibrastic rhyme, from its
prevalence in Samuel Butler's Hudibras (written in
1663-80; see O1.1561).
(The Poetry Handbook, Joh Lennard, Oxford University Press,
New York NY.)
For example, the following is an excerpt from:
I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General
I am the very model of a modern Major-General,
I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights
historical,
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news-
With many cheerful facts about the square of the
hypotenuse.
W.S. Gibert, 1836-1911
(N1041)
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