POGO 



6210 



POINCARE 



demanded by poetry," emphasises 

 its form. This is to say that by some 

 critics poetry has been regarded as 

 a certain way of looking at tilings, 

 by others as a certain way of ex- 

 pressing things. The truth seems 

 to be that it is both. Avoiding 

 pedantry we may say that what is 

 mnmou' t<> poets is a similarity in 

 their way of viewing human 

 experience, the emotional and 

 imaginative way, together with 

 a similarity in their way of 

 |nvMMiting it, the rhythmical way. 

 " It is not metres, but a metre- 

 forging argument that makes a 

 poem, a thought so passionate and 

 alive that, like the spirit of a plant 

 or animal, it has an architecture 

 of its own, and adorns nature with 

 a new thing." (Emerson. ) 



What then is the connexion be- 

 tween the emotional and imagina- 

 tive way of viewing experience and 

 the metrical way of presenting it ? 

 The idea, in passing through an 

 emotional medium, or mood of 

 feeling, clothes itself in images and 

 rhythm. Thought, when impas- 

 sioned or aglow, seeks an outlet in 

 language attuned to it. Just as 

 the emotion felt by the orator tends 

 to raise the key of his utterance, to 

 produce the excited or heightened 

 speech called eloquence, so the 

 poet's emotion clothes itself in 

 imaginative and rhythmical speech. 

 The language not only expresses 

 his thought, it echoes the feeling 

 which accompanies his thought. 

 It tends also to produce the same 

 mood in the reader or hearer, to 

 arouse a corresponding emotion, a 

 contagious excitement, not unlike 

 that which impels one to beat time 

 to music in which the rhythm is 

 strongly marked. " You may speak 

 truth uncontradicted in verse, you 

 cannot in prose." 



Words and Ideas 



By entangling, that is, the mind 

 of the reader in the tune, by awak- 

 ing what is at least a partial and 

 sympathetic response to the rhythm, 

 the poet finds the readier entry for 

 his point of view or his ideas. " We 

 are all sensible," says Reynolds, 

 " how differently the imagination 

 is affected by the same sentiment 

 expressed in different words." 

 There are many ways of saying 

 much the same thing, but that a 

 peculiar and striking effectiveness 

 attaches to the imaginative and 

 rhythmical way of the poets, all 

 races and generations have borne 

 witness. This effectiveness may 

 arise from a happy choice of words, 

 a turn of phrase, a suggestive meta- 

 phor, an arresting idea, a subtle 

 reference or profound reflexion, but 

 is essentially poetical only when 

 it is accompanied by an engaging 

 or captivating rhythm. 



In the last analysis, however, one 

 cannot separate form from sub- 

 stance in poetry, any more than in 

 sculpture or music ; the poem itself 

 is the link that holds them together 

 in an indissoluble union. Alter the 

 expression or the tune, and inevit- 

 ably you have in some measure 

 altered the idea; the impression con- 

 veyed is not the same. Nor is there 

 any word in any language which can 

 exactly replace another word. Each 

 has at least its own sound and asso- 

 ciation values. It is not, therefore, 

 really possible to say exactly the 

 same thing in different words. The 

 slightest disturbance in the form 

 involves a change in the substance, 

 and this is more particularly true of 

 poetry ; we have not only " the 

 best words," but " the best wordfc 

 in the best order." In poetry, as in 

 music, the matter is in the poem. 

 Nevertheless, there are many types. 

 In Browning, for example, the in- 

 tellectual element is emphasised ; 

 in Swinburne the musical. On the 

 one side poetry may fall away so as 

 to be barely distinguishable from 

 prose ; on the other, so as to be 

 little more than verbal music. 

 The Ear and the Understanding 



It is the peculiarity of this art 

 that in it we have sounds ad- 

 dressed at one and the same mo- 

 ment to the ear and to the under- 

 standing, and in its highest reaches 

 music and thought are so inter- 

 woven that the effect cannot be 

 assigned exclusively to the one or 

 the other, to the quality either of 

 the form or of the substance. It is 

 the combination that delights us. 

 " One loves to feel the idea bending 

 and adjusting itself to the rules of 

 verse, and the verse yielding to the 

 demands of the idea." Poetry is 

 the sum of two values, the intellec- 

 tual and the musical, but somehow 

 the effect is greater than their sum. 

 Rhythm and metre, which is " the 

 application of rhythm to speech," 

 symbolise our entry into a new, un- 

 conventional world, where beauty 

 is desired for its own sake, where 

 human experience is brought into 

 relation with the ideas of the 

 heart, where truth and justice are 

 invincible and the imagination free 

 to build its own house, with its 

 own materials, unfettered by prac- 

 tical considerations. 



Bibliography. Defence of Poesie, 

 P. Sidney, 1591 ; Essays in English 

 Poetry, T. Campbell, 3rd ed. 1848; 

 A Defence of Poetry, P. B. Shelley, 

 ed. A. S. Cook, 1891 ; History of 

 English Poetry, W. J. Court/hope, 

 6 vols., 1895-1910 ; A Historical 

 Manual of English Prosody, G. E. 

 Saintsbury, 1910 ; Five Centuries 

 of English Verse ; Impressions, 2 

 vols., W. Stebbing, 1913; Essays in 

 Criticism, M. Arnold, new ed. 1915; 

 Poetry, T. Watts-Dunton, 1916. 



Pogo. The jump- 

 ing-stick in use 



Pogo. Exercise which became 

 popular in 1921. The pogo jumping- 

 stick is a pole short or long accord- 

 ing to the height of the user, with 

 foot rests on 

 either side. At 

 its base is an 

 indiaru b ber 

 pad, and in 

 the interior of 

 the stick is a 

 strong coiled 

 spring. The 

 mechanism is 

 simple, but 

 makes hopping 

 an excellent 

 exercise, the 

 shock being 

 broken by the 

 indiaru bber 

 pad. The kan- 

 garoo-like atti- 

 tude of the 

 players causes 

 some amuse- 

 ment at first, but enthusiasts claim 

 a great future for pogo. 



Pogrom (Russian, devastation). 

 Deliberate massacre in Russia 

 aimed at the destruction of a par- 

 ticular class, and especially applied 

 to organized attacks upon Jews. 

 The term was frequently found in 

 English newspapers from 1880 

 onwards. Prow. Pog-gromm. 



Pohl, HUGO VON (1855-1916). 

 German sailor. Born at Breslau, 

 Aug. 25, 1855, he entered the Ger- 

 man navy, at- 

 tain i n g the 

 rank of captain 

 in 1900 ; was 

 on active ser- 

 vice in China, 

 1900-1; and 

 promoted vice- 

 admiral in 

 1909. Chief of 

 the German 

 Admiralty staff 

 in 1915, he became commander-in- 

 chief of the High Seas Fleet in 

 succession to Ingenohl in April, 

 1915, retaining this position till 

 Jan., 1916, when he retired. He 

 died in Feb., 1916. His notes and 

 letters, which deal, among other 

 matters, with the early phases of the 

 U-boat war, were published in 1920. 

 Poilu (Fr., hairy or bearded). 

 Popular name given to the French 

 soldier It was first used for the 

 recruits as distinct from the older 

 men and implied affectionate re- 

 spect, not devoid of humour. Later 

 the word came to signify the 

 common soldier of France, particu- 

 larly under the conditions of trench 

 warfare. . 



Poincare, JULES HENRI (1854- 

 1912). French scientist. Born at 

 Nancy, April 29, 1854, he became 

 an engineer, 1879. In 1886 he was 



Hugo von Pobl, 

 German sailor 



