A Shropshire Lad: Poetry of A.E. Housman

A. E. Housman

Feb 2009 · Freshwater Seas · Kuchazwe ngu-Robert Bethune

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A Shropshire Lad presents A. E. Housman's reflections on love, death, and the eternal uncertainty of the human condition.

Placed in an idealized world of rural England, unpolluted by the taint of the city, but still a place where love can fail, evil can come to good people, and human beings can find themselves torn deeply by conflicting desires and feelings. Housman had great faith in his work even when he could not find a publisher and had to bring it out himself. His faith was rewarded.

The volume has become a classic of English literature and an inspiration to musicians and composers, who have set many of his poems to music. Housman was not prolific; his total output consists of this volume and one other (Last Poems), but his achievement places him among the world's great poets.

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A. E. Housman was born in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England on March 26, 1859. In 1877, he attended St. John's College, Oxford and received first class honours in classical moderations. He worked as clerk in the Patent Office in London for ten years. During this time he studied Greek and Roman classics intensively, and in 1892 was appointed professor of Latin at University College, London. In 1911 he became professor of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, a post he held until his death. He only published two volumes of poetry during his lifetime: A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems. He died on April 30, 1936. A third volume, More Poems, was released posthumously in 1936 by his brother as was an edition of Housman's Complete Poems in 1939.