Hudibras

Written in the aftermath of the English Civil War, this mock-heroic poem follows Sir Hudibras, a pompous Presbyterian knight, and his squire Ralpho, a squabbling sectarian, as they blunder through the countryside enforcing their rigid brand of piety. Butler modeled the pair loosely on Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to ridicule the hypocrisy, pedantry, and zealotry of the Puritan faction that had governed England under Cromwell. Its galloping doggerel couplets, so distinctive that they gave English the term ‘Hudibrastic verse,’ were quoted for generations and delighted the Restoration court. The poem endures as one of the sharpest political satires in the language. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.