AE HOUSMAN










(1859-1936)
Alfred Edward Housman
born 3/26/59
in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England
o moved 1860 to nearby Bromsgrove
o grew up, educated there
oldest of 7 children
taught them (became a teacher)
studied the Bible with his mother
father = womanizer, solicitor
*1871: mother died
o  AEH: her suffering = unjust (unjust suffering)
o he was extremely close to her
o died on his 12th birthday
o  pessimism (in his poetry)
poetry prizes at private secondary school (2 consecutive yrs.)
1877: Oxford U. (St. John’s College) on a scholarship (see prizes)
o dissatisfied with the quality of the education  skipped classes, taught himself, studied whom he
wanted
o founded & co-edited & wrote parodies of contemporary poems and fiction for Ye Round Table
(undergraduate magazine)
o homosexual desires:
 fell in love with his heterosexual roommate (Moses Jackson),
 a runner (see “To an Athlete Dying Young”), a life-long friend
o  *failed his Comprehensive Exam in the classics (BUT passed his final year)
o  returned home, taught school, worked in Government Patent Office (a civil service job), 10 years
1882-92:
 determined to make up for Oxford failure, studied the classics
 wrote 20+ scholarly essays
 applied for and received professorship at U. of London as Prof. of Latin (1892)
1893-95:
 burst of creativity
 had always written poems before now
 now, 58 lyrics
 1896: published out of pocket A Shropshire Lad
1911:
 professor of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge
 held position until his death
Classicist:
 Greek and Roman classics
 gained renown for his editions of Juvenal, Lucan, and Manilius (Roman poets)
 meticulous, scholarly, insightful, intelligent commentaries
__________________________________________________________________________________________
2
POETRY





form = lyrics
style = simple, spare -- though achieved through effort
language = simple, straightforward (rustic), rhythm and sound of folk ballads
subjects = universal (love & death)
tone: pessimism (Romantic pessimism)
o poetry = “to harmonize the sadness of the universe” AEH









HARDY & HOUSMAN:
SIMPLICITY
o of style
o of language
influence on late 1940s, 1950s
**unlike Thomas Hardy, AEH wrote of the countryside without the experience, imitating the Classics,
Latin pastoral poetry; stylized affectation
published only 2 volumes of poetry: A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922)
A Shropshire Lad (1896):
o cycle of 63 poems
o written after the 1892 death of Adalbert Jackson (friend & companion)
o influences: Heinrich Heine (poems), Shakespeare (songs), Scottish border ballads
o  effect on style/his purpose:
 techniques to express emotions clearly yet comfortably distant
 persona = farm laborer
 setting = Shropshire (a county he had not yet visited)
 <famouspoetsandpoems.com>
o themes = “pastoral beauty, unrequited love, fleeting youth, grief, death, & the patriotism of the
common soldier”
o published at his own expense (see Hawthorne, Poe), after rejected several times
o book & poet gained popularity as England became involved in wars: Boer War & World War I
 b/c of its “nostalgic depiction of brave English soldiers”
  contemporary composers “created musical settings for Housman’s work”
 <poets.org>
Last Poems (1922):
o collection of old, unpublished poems
o most poems = written before 1910
o given to his dying friend (ex-roommate) Moses Jackson
o greater range of subject & form (greater than Shropshire)
“When I was One and Twenty” (1896) advice
“Loveliest of Trees” (1896) 80, cherry blossom
“To an Athlete Dying Young” (1896) fame
*admired during his lifetime more for his scholarly work than his poetry
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
3
“To an Athlete Dying Young”



(1896)
laurel leaves: crowned gladiators as crown of glory/triumph
time: loss of fame, ability
setting: small town, cemetery

tone = ironic
o undermines the belief that athletic success is glorious
o Speaker = envious??? has the speaker witnessed his own athletic ability wane, his own records fall,
his own glory fade???

theme =
o NOT: better to die young (“live fast, die hard, leave a good looking corpse”)
o not about the records over living
o not saying athletes only want to live in the limelight, record books
o “Cannot see the record cut” = small attempt at solace, lame attempt to comfort, trying to find some
positive in a tragedy
o BUT:
o glory, fame = fleeting
o how we tend to remember the best of those who die in their prime, before their “laurels” have faded
 EX: JFK, Elvis, James Dean, Marylyn Monroe (pix: “BLVD of Broken Dreams”)


carry #1: athlete carried through town on a chair = celebration of his prowess ("coach carried off the field
on players' shoulders")
carry #2: carried shoulder-high in his coffin

**CARPE DIEM: seize the day

runner: running the “race of life”

* “Ex-Basketball Player” John Updike
4
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
“WHEN I WAS ONE-AND-TWENTY”
(1896)










Speaker = 22 years old, looking back on last year
Carpe diem!
o “When I was One-and-Twenty”
o “To an Athlete Dying Young”
Young = know-it-all
WISE MAN = ?
Wise man’s advice:

(+)
Father,
professor,
authority figure, poet,
o give away money BUT not your heart
persona talking to younger self, to students
o stay “footloose & fancy free”
(passing along sage advice)
o cost of love = plenty of sighs, endless regret
 (-) jaded, old man, corrupting youth theme
“wise” =
o speech, diction (poetic)
o older man
o realized in hindsight, when speaking in this poem
learn lessons the hard way
told more than once, BUT still ignored advice
experiential learning, 1st-hand experience VS. advice, textbook learning
teach the young by getting old
SONGS:
o Eddie Money: “Life for the Taking,” “Backtrack”
o Beatles “Hide Your Love Away”
o Sheryl Crow “The First Cut Is the Deepest”
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
“Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.”
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.
When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
“The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
’Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.”
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, ’tis true, ’tis true.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
5
“Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now”
(1896)












Lyric
o AABB
o 3 4-line stanzas (quatrains)
“woodland ride”
o the “ride of life”
o movement
o poem = pause
o (see Frost’s “Stopping by Woods…”)
20 won’t come again
o “ride” = only 1 way (Frost’s “2 Paths”)
rebirth:
o Eastertide = connotes spring, rebirth
o cyclical nature of nature
o white blooms = white snow at end
“snow”
o the “snow” of the blossoms in spring
o the snow that covers the tree in winter
o winter  death, old age
 on the ride of life, from spring to winter
o oppression, burden, weight bearing down on the tree, covering up its uniqueness/individuality
 of age, time (old age)
 of heterodoxy (AEH’s repressed homosexuality)
 of “Life”
 responsibilities, regrets, chores, jobs, bills, relationships, …
 “Unknown Citizen,” “anyone lived…,” “I’m Nobody!” (anti-conformity)
 (bar-code poem?), face in the crowd
“Life”
o can’t stop & smell the roses
o can’t stop and appreciate beauty – even if wanted to, had the time
o can’t pause on the “ride of life”
 (see Frost’s “Stopping by Woods…”)
Industrial Revolution:
o can’t appreciate Nature
o Natural beauty =
 unappreciated
 disappearing (short-lived, won’t be hear long – like Youth)
images of 1st & 3rd = connected
“70” =
o 3 score, 10
o Bible’s expected human life span
cherry blossoms: white or pink
theme = brevity of human life (using the praise of nature's beauty to make such comment)
carpe diem
6
**
CARPE DIEM **
seize the day







“To an Athlete Dying Young”
“Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now”
“When I was One-and-Twenty”
“Not Waving, But Drowning”
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may”
“The Road Not Taken”
“The Unknown Citizen”