nineteen years in irons. Chained in pairs, he and other political prisoners were confined in one small room in the bagno of Nisida, near the lazaretto. The eloquent exposure (18 51) of the horrors of the Neapolitan dungeons by Gladstone, who emphasized especially the case of Poerio, awakened the universal indignation of Europe, but he did not obtain his liberty till 18 58. He and other exiles were than placed on board a ship bound for the United States, but the son of Settembrini, another of the exiles, who was on board in disguise, compelled the crew to land them at Cork, whence Poerio made his way to London. In the following year he returned to Italy, and in 1860 he was elected deputy to the parliament of Turin, of which he was chosen vice-president in 1861. He died at Florence on the 28th of April 1867. See Baldachini, Della Vzta e de' tempfi dz Carlo Poerio (1867); W E Gladstone, Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen (1851); Carlo Poerzo and the Neapolttan Polzce (London, 1858); Vannucci, I Martzrt della ltbertd ztalzana, vol. iii. (Milan, 1880); lmbriani, Alessandro Poerzo a Venezta (Naples, 1884); Del Giudlce, I Fratellz Poerzo (Turin, 1899); Countess Martlnengo Cesaresco, Italtan Characters (London, 1901).
POETRY. In modern criticism the word poetry (i.e. the art of the poet, Gr. vrolnms, maker, from vrotelv, to make) is used sometimes to denote any expression (artistic or other) of imaginative feeling, sometimes to designate a precise literary art, which ranks as one of the fine arts. As an expression of imaginative feeling, as the movement of an energy, as one of those great primal human forces which go to the development of the
race, poetry in the wide sense has played as important a part as science. In some literature's (such as that of England) poetic
energy and in others (such as that of Rome) poetic art is the
dominant quality. It is the same with individual writers.
In classical literature Pindar may perhaps be taken as a type of
the poets of energy; Virgil of the poets of art. With all his
wealth of poetic art Pindar's mastery over symmetrical methods
never taught him to “ sow with the hand, ” as Corinna declared,
while his poetic energy always impelled him to “ sow with the
whole sack.” In English poetical literature Elizabeth Barrett
Browning typiiies, perhaps, the poets of energy; while Keats
(notwithstanding all his unquestionable inspiration) is mostly
taken as a type of the poets of art. In French literature Hugo,
notwithstanding all his mastery over poetic methods, represents
the poets of energy.
In some writers, and these the very greatest-in Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and perhaps Goethe-poetic energy and poetic art are seen in something like equipoise. It is of poetry as an art, however, that we have mainly to speak here; and all we have to say upon poetry as an energy is that the critic who, like Aristotle, takes this wide view of poetry-the critic who, like him, recognizes the importance of poetry in its relations to man's other expressions of spiritual force, claims a place in point of true critical sagacity above that of a critic who, like Plato, fails to recognize that importance. And assuredly no philosophy of history can be other than inadequate should it ignore the fact that poetry has had as much effect upon human destiny as that other great human energy by aid of which, from the discovery of the use of fire to that of the electric light, the useful arts have been developed. With regard to poetry as an art, most of the great poems of the world are dealt with elsewhere in this work, either in connexion with the names of the writers or with the various literature's to which they belong; consequently these remarks must be confined to general principles. Under VERSE the detailed questions of prosody are considered; here we are concerned with the essential principles which underlie the meaning of poetry as such. All that can be attempted is to inquire: (1) What is poetry? (2) What is the position it takes up in relation to the other arts P (3) What is its value and degree of expressional power in relation to these? and, finally, (4) What varieties of poetic art are the outcome of the two great kinds of poetic impulse, dramatic imagination and lyric or egoistic imagination 9 1. What is Poetry?-Definitions are for the most part alike unsatisfactory an-d treacherous; but definitions of poetry are proverbially so. Is it possible to lay down invariable principles of poetry, such as those famous “ invariable principles ” of William Lisle Bowles, which in the earlier part of the century awoke the admiration of Southey and the wrath Defmmon of Byron V Is it possible for a critic to say of any metrical phrase, stanza or verse, “ This is poetry, ” or “ This is not poetry”? Can he, with anything like the authority with which the man of science pronounces upon the natural objects brought before him, pronounce upon the qualities of a poem P These are questions that have engaged the attention of critics ever s1nce the time of Aristotle. Byron, in his rough and ready way, answered them in one of those letters to his publisher John Murray, which, rich as they are in nonsense, are almost as rich in sense. “ So far are principles of poetry from being invariable, ” says he, “ that they never were nor ever will be settled. These principles mean nothing more than the pred1lect1ons of a particular age, and every age has its own and a different from its predecessor. It is now Homer and now Virgil; once Dryden and since Sir Walter Scott; now Corneille and now Racine; now Crébillon and now Voltaire.” This is putting the case very strongly-perhaps too strongly. But if we remember that Sophocles lost the first prize for the Oedipus tyrannus; if we remember what in Dante's time (owing partly, no doubt, to the universal ignorance of Greek) were the relative positions of Homer and Virgil, what in the time of Milton were the relative positions of Milton himself, of Shakespeare, and of Beaumont and Fletcher; again, if we remember ]eHrey's famous classification of the poets of his day, we shall be driven to pause over Byron's words before dismissing them. Yet some definition, for the purpose of this essay, must be here attempted; and, using the phrase “ absolute poetry ” as the musical critics use the phrase “absolute music, ” we may, perhaps, without too great presumption submit the following:-
Absolute poetry is the concrete and arlistic expression of the human mind in emotional and rhythmical language. This at least will be granted, that no literary expression can, properly speaking, be called poetry that is not in a certain deep sense emotional, whatever may be its subject-matter, concrete in its method and its diction, rhythmical in movement, and artistic in form.
That the expression of all real poetry must be concrete in method and diction is obvious, and yet this dictum would exclude from the definition much of what is called didactic poetry. With abstractions the poet has nothing to do, save to take them and turn them into concretions, for, as artist, he is simply the man who by instinct embodies in concrete forms that “universal idea” which Gravina speaks of-that which is essential and elemental in nature and in man; as poetic artist he is simply the man who by instinct chooses for his concrete forms metrical language. And the questions to be asked concerning any work of art are simply these-Is that which is here embodied really permanent, universal and elemental? and, Is the concrete form embodying it really beautiful-acknowledged as beautiful by the soul of man in its highest moods? Any other question is an impertinence.
As an example of the absence of concrete form in verse take the following lines from George Eliot's S panlsh Gypsy:- “ Speech is but broken light upon the depth
Of the unspoken; even your loved words
Float in the larger meaning of your voice
As something d1mmer.”
Without discussing the question of blank verse cadence and the weakness of a line where the main accent falls upon a positive hiatus, “ of the unspoken, ” we would point out that this powerful passage shows the spirit of poetry without its concrete form. The abstract method is substituted for the concrete. Such an abstract phrase as “ the unspoken ” belongs entirely to prose.
As to what is called ratiocinative poetry, it might perhaps be shown that it does not exist at all. Not by syllogism, but per saltum, must the poet reach in every case his conclusions. We listen to the poet-we allow him to address us in rhythm or in rhyme-we allow him to sing to us while other men are only
