Writers, thinkers and poets, as ranked their beards

JA April 19

More wonderment from the vaults of A Journey Round My Skull this week.

The ever-entertaining Gilbert Alter-Gilbert has done a post on a rather curious publication from the early 20th century called Poets Ranked by Beard Weight (written by the equally curiously named Upton Uxbridge Underwood). The leaflet provides ‘a fascinating excursion through such topics as False Beards, Merkins, and Capillamenta (chin wigs); Effusions of the Scalp and Face; Celebrated Chaetognaths (chaetognathous = hairy-jawed); and even includes an affectionate mini-essay about the woolly mammoth’. Indeed so much of this text and the related commentary were so fantastical that I found myself wondering on more than one occasion if it wasn’t half made-up, but I suppose that’s really besides the point.

So then to the particulars. In the words of Alter-Gilbert, Underwood’s work operates on the basic premise that ‘the texture, contours, and growth patterns of a man's beard indicate personality traits, aptitudes, and strengths and weaknesses of character’. I suppose it’s rather like a more bizarre form of palmistry or physiognomy. A large bushy beard might, for example, denote a more generous spirit, while a ‘forked, finely-downed’ whisker indicates ‘creativity and the gift of intuition’. Underwood even went a step further, claiming that a detailed analysis of one’s bristles could in fact go towards predicting the future, based on the lost ‘ancient art of pogonomancy’.

To this end, he developed a grading system, known as the ‘Underwood Pogonometric Index’, to calculate what he called ‘poetic gravity’ or beard weight. I suppose it went something like, the greater the weight, the greater the subject’s ‘artistic proficiency and integrity’. According to the post, the average beard weighed in at ten to twenty-four, whereas forty an above was for ‘exceptional individuals’.

Here’s one analysis of Walt Whitman, which sadly places him below the bar. For the ranking of Sir Walter Raleigh, Tennyson, Samuel Morse and co, have a read of the full essay, here.

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)
Beard type: Hibernator
Typical opus: O Captain! My Captain!
Gravity (UPI rating): 22

Update: I can't help but include this diagram on the trustworthiness of beards (click to enlarge). Via Rumpus

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