POEL. * 



in surroundings marked by every, 

 sign of penury except dirt. 



Save for The Bells, Ulalume, For 

 Annie, and Annabel Lee, the last 

 named written in memory of his 

 dead wife, Poe's life-work was vir- 

 tually finished. The remaining 

 years, still the subject of controv- 

 ersy, were years of tragedy. Poe 

 died of brain fever in hospital at 

 Baltimore, Oct. 7, 1849, and was 

 buried in the old cemetery of West- 

 minster Church. 



Poe was usually a solitary, where 

 the world was concerned, with gen- 

 tlemanly bearing, but of a temper 

 that stood in the way of those who 

 tried to help him. He was devoted 

 as a husband, but unable to with- 

 stand the poison of drink or the 

 temptation of opium. Greater as 

 craftsman, perhaps, than as artist, 

 his work, in its kind, is original and 

 perfect. His poetry is masterly in 

 form and in music, his tales are 

 flawless in technique. His influence 

 has been world-wide, especially in 

 France ; himself he was influenced 

 by Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, and 

 E. B. Browning. His last words 

 were " Lord, help my poor soul." 



W. F. Aitken 



Bibliography. Tales and Poems, 

 ed. J. H. Ingram, 4 vols., 1884 ; 

 Life, Letters, and Opinions, ed. J. 

 H. Ingram, 2 vols., 1886 ; Complete 

 Poetical Works, ed. J. H. Ingram, 

 1888 ; Works, ed. E. C. Stedman 

 and G. E. Woodberry, 10 vols., 

 1895 ; Complete Works, Virginia 

 edition, ed. J. A. Harrison, 1902-3 ; 

 Life and Letters, J. A. Harrison, 

 1903 ; Life, G. E. Woodberry, 2 

 vols., 1909 ; Critical Study, A. 

 "Ransome, 1910 ; Complete Poems, 

 ed. J. H. Whitty, 1911 ; Poe and 

 His Poetry, L. N. Chase, 1913. 



Poel, WILLIAM (b. 1852). British 

 actor-manager. Making his first 

 appearance in 1876, he was the first 

 modern pro- 

 ducer to revive 

 Hamlet with- 

 out scenery, at 

 St. George's 

 Hall, London, 

 1881. He man- 

 aged the Old 

 Vic., 1881-83, 

 and became 

 stage manager 

 for F. R. Ben- 

 son, 1883-84. 

 In 1895 he founded the Eliza- 

 bethan Stage Society, reviving 

 plays by Marlowe, Ben Jonson, 

 Beaumont and Fletcher, etc. The 

 first to point out that, in character- 

 isation and in the delivery of verse, 

 modern actors adopt the traditions 

 of the 18th century as distinct 

 from those of the Elizabethan open 

 platform period, he dramatised 

 Baring - Gould's Mehalah, 1886, 

 and wrote Shakespeare and the 

 Theatre, 1913. 



William Poel, British 

 actor-manager 



Runell 



62O9 



Poelcapelle. Village of Bel- 

 gium, hi the prov. of W. Flanders. 

 It lies one mile E. of Langemarck 

 (q.v.), and was prominent hi the 

 British operations in the Ypres 

 salient in the Great War. Occupy- 

 ing a commanding position on 

 a ridge, it was fiercely contested 

 in the first battle of Ypres. Here hi 

 April, 1915, the Canadians put up 

 a great defence when the Germans 

 attacked the salient. It was 

 stormed by the British llth divi- 

 sion, Oct. 4, 1917, marking the 

 N.E. limit of their advance in the 

 third battle of Ypres. Retaken by 

 the Germans in April, 1918, it was 

 captured by the Allies in Sept. A 

 British war memorial is projected 

 on its site. See Ypres, Battles of. 



Poerio, CARLO (1803-67). Italian 

 patriot. Born at Naples, Dec. 10, 

 1803, he supported every popular 

 agitation for constitutional govern- 

 ment, and was in exile, 1821-35. 

 In 1835 he went back to Naples, 

 and practised law until the rising 

 of 1848, when the threat of revolu- 

 tion caused Ferdinand to appoint 

 him to the cabinet. The collapse 

 of the national cause in 1849 gave 

 the king an opportunity of wreak- 

 ing his vengeance, and Poerio was 

 sentenced to 19 years hi the gal- 

 leys. Gladstone's exposure of the 

 Bourbon atrocities, and his special 

 reference to Poerio, had the tardy 

 effect of releasing him in 1858, and 

 he was elected to the Italian parlia- 

 ment of 1860. He died April 28, 

 1867. His brother Alessandro 

 (180248), an eminent poet, shared 

 his fortunes until he was killed at 

 the siege of Venice, Nov. 3, 1848. 



Poet at the Breakfast Table, 

 THE. Third volume of Oliver Wen- 

 dell Holmes's breakfast table series, 



POETRY 



published in 1872. Though less 

 spontaneous than The Autocrat, it 

 is full of humour and mellow wis 

 dom. It is interspersed with poems. 

 Poet Laureate. A poet crowned 

 with bays or wreath of laurel. The 

 custom originated in Greece, and 

 was perpetuated in Rome, where 

 Domitian gave the bays to Statius. 

 Petrarch was similarly honoured 

 hi Rome in 1341. The custom 

 was followed in Germany in the 

 15th and 16th centuries, and in 

 16th century Spain. 

 - In England the title poet lau- 

 reate was first applied to a poet 

 attached to the court ; known 

 earlier as Versificator Regis, he 

 was styled poet laureate in the 

 time of Edward IV, the first holder 

 being John Kaye, author of The 

 Siege of Rhodes, a work printed 

 by Caxton. John Skelton called 

 himself both poet laureate and 

 regius orator ; he was crowned 

 at Oxford and wore the laurel at 

 Cambridge. Though Chaucer was 

 a recipient of gifts from Edward III 

 and Richard II, and Spenser was 

 pensioned by Elizabeth, the Eng- 

 lish laureateship is usually dated 

 from Ben Jonson, to whom James I, 

 by letters patent, gave a pension 

 of 100 marks (about 67), a sum 

 increased by Charles I to 100 and 

 a tierce of canary wine. In 

 Southey's time the sum of 27 was 

 substituted for the wine. The more 

 notable holders of the office have 

 included Dryden, Southey, Words- 

 worth, Tennyson, and Robert 

 Bridges. With the exception of 

 Nahum Tate (1652-1715), all have 

 been born in England. See The 

 Laureates of England, K. West, 

 1895 ; The Poets Laureate of Eng- 

 land, W. F. Gray, 1914. 



POETRY: ITS MUSIC AND MEANING 



W. Macneile Dixon. M.A., Professor of 

 English Language and Literature, Glasgow 



See the biographical articles on the world's great poets, Dante; 

 Homer ; Milton ; Shakespeare ; Shelley ; Virgil, and others ; Prose ; 

 Rhythm ; Verse ; also English Literature 



Poetry eludes definition and 

 necessarily eludes it. The word is 

 a convenient and comprehensive 

 term, invented by the Greeks, to 

 which successive races, generations, 

 and individuals have attached each 

 their own meaning. It has been 

 employed to describe compositions 

 to all seeming poles apart. Trea- 

 tises on agriculture and gardening, 

 on theology and astronomy, on the 

 art of criticism and of cookery, 

 works as remote from each other as 

 Armstrong's Art of Preserving 

 Health and Shelley's Skylark, even 

 works in prose like the Dialogues of 

 Plato, have, hi a spirit of magnifi- 

 cent inclusiveness, been described 

 as poetry. Is it possible to discover 

 the underlying connexion, the link 



which binds together Compositions 

 apparently so diverse, which in 

 some fashion or other unites them 

 all, and thus to explain to ourselves 

 what we really mean when we 

 speak of poets or poetry ? 



Certainly some connexion exists. 

 Yet to the question, where pre- 

 cisely is it to be found, the answers 

 have been many and various. In 

 the ma in. however, they are divis- 

 ible into two classes. One is the 

 answer which, like Arnold's, speaks 

 of it as " a criticism of life," or " the 

 noble and profound application of 

 ideas to life," and thus emphasises 

 its substance or content. The other 

 belongs to the class which, like 

 Hegel's dictum, "Metre is the 

 first and only condition absolutely 



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