A. E. Housman A Reassessment

by Holden, Alan W.; Birch, J. Roy

• ISBN13: 9780312223182
• ISBN10: 0312223188
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-03
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

This collection of essays was conceived as part of the centenary celebrations of the first publication in 1896 of one of the most popular collections of poetry ever written- A Shropshire Lad -a collection never out of print in a hundred years. Yet Housman was a recluse, an austere classicist of great renown who devoted his academic life to the correction of ancient texts. He filled his poems with the lives, loves, and deaths of simple country people whose emotions are intense and often violent, but lived his own life in stoic acceptance of his loveless, arid existence. Why his life should have been so intentionally empty of emotion raises questions about Housman's own sexuality and the relationship he had with his friend Moses Jackson and Jackson's brother Afalbert. Housman's poetry, like his life, is deceptively simple: this volume shows some of the complex currents below the surface.

Author Biography

Alan W. Holden has been editor, since 1987, of the Housman Society Journal.

J. Roy Birch is editor of The Selected Comic Poems of Housman: "Unkind to Unicorns."

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Notes on the Contributors	ix
Introduction	xiii
A. E. Housman's `Level Tones'	1	(19)
Archie Burnett
The Critical Reception of A Shropshire Lad	20	(17)
Benjamin F. Fisher
The Land of Lost Content	37	(16)
Keith Jebb
Tacit Pledges	53	(23)
Geoffrey Hill
`Ashes under Uricon': Historicizing A. E. Housman, Reifying T. H. Huxley, Embracing Lucretius	76	(11)
Kenneth Womack
A. E. Housman and Thomas Hardy	87	(19)
Norman Page
`Flowers to Fair': A Shropshire Lad's Legacy of Song	106	(28)
Trevor Hold
Housman's Manilius	134	(20)
G. P. Goold
Lewis Carroll in Shropshire	154	(13)
John Bayley
The First Edition of A Shropshire Lad in Bookshop and Auction Room	167	(21)
P. G. Naiditch
A. E. Housman's Use of Biblical Narrative	188	(22)
Carol Efrati
The Spirit of Haiku and A. E. Housman	210	(10)
Takeshi Obata
Select Bibliography	220	(3)
Index	223