Alfred Edward Housman

6

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  à AEH: her suffering = unjust (unjust suffering)

o  he was extremely close to her

o  died on his 12th birthday

o  à 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 à 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  à *failed his Comprehensive Exam in the classics (BUT passed his final year)

o  à 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

______

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  à 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”

§  à 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

______

“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

______

“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’s advice:

o  give away money BUT not your heart

o  stay “footloose & fancy free”

o  cost of love = plenty of sighs, endless regret

·  “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.

______

“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 à 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

** 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”