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Full Description
This is a new study and interpretation of the much loved poet, A. E. Housman, best known for his poems A Shropshire Lad. But there was so much more to this enigmatic person, our greatest classicist who penned some of the loveliest poetry ever written. In this book, Waine investigates Housman's enigmatic and brilliant mind, and shows, with empathy and wit, how he located a complicated path on which to walk and flourish, despite the many brambles that lay on
all sides of his lonely journey.
"W.H. Auden famously described A.E. Housman as keeping 'tears like dirty postcards in a drawer'. An element of mystery has always surrounded the life of this intensely private man. In his quirky but compelling account of Housman's development into both a renowned classical scholar (even after failing his undergraduate degree in Classics!) and the best selling author of A Shropshire Lad, Peter Waine casts fresh light on the oddities and obsessions that resulted in the rebarbative Housman 'persona', as well as in some of the most beautiful and moving lyrics in the English language. Richly detailed and elegantly written, this is a fascinating guide to the work of a poet whose admirers ranged from Oscar Wilde to Randall Jarrell." — PROFESSOR MARK FORD Professor of Poetry, UCL
Contents
1 HIS POETRY DIVIDES: 'Was reason for being born.' 'A minor poet.'
2 SHROPSHIRE: 'This is the land of lost content.'
3 A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 'Oh I have been to Ludlow Fair.'
4 THE OTHER POEMS: 'The farms of home lie lost in even.'
5 HIS TECHNIQUE: TURNING THE ROUTINE INTO THE SPECIAL.
6 ON POETRY: 'Poetry is to harmonise the sadness of the universe.'
7 THE POEMS' NARRATORS: 'Who in despair lament the futility of their general lot.'
8 POEMS PUT TO MUSIC: 'He hoped I'd never set any of his poems.'
9 AS A CLASSICIST: 'A vague legend attached to a man.'
10 AS A HOMOSEXUAL: 'I, a stranger and afraid.'
11 SENSE OF HUMOUR: 'A good raconteur of the pithy and caustic order.'
12 ON FOOD AND DRINK: 'And malt does more than Milton can.'
13 HOLIDAYS AND TRAVEL: 'Housman arrived... Housman went away.'
14 WOMEN AND CHILDREN: 'Women cannot reason.' 'Better if [no] children were there to spoil the fun.'
15 HIS CHARACTER: 'My book is more interesting than its man.'
16 HIS BIOGRAPHERS: 'At present Who's Who gives all the external facts.'
17 HOUSMAN AS AUTISTIC: A new interpretation.
18 ON RELIGION AND DEATH: 'Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.' 'In all the endless road you tread.' There's nothing but the night.'
19 APPROACHING THE END: 'My life is bearable, but I do not want it to continue.'
