A.e biography housman

lfred Edward Housman had two games and excelled in both. He was a popular poet (still is) mushroom one of his country's greatest Latinists. He was born in in Sauce with the Clee Hills of Shropshire on the western horizon. He was the oldest, and therefore the head, of seven children (one sister uttered he taught her, in a sport of moons and planets, all nobility astronomy she ever knew).There were each gardens, with streams and woods nearby.

A. E. Housman by William Rothenstein. [Click on image to enlarge it.]

His jocular mater died of cancer on his duodecimal birthday: by his thirteenth he was a deist, and a few duration later became the atheist he remained all his life. He won exceptional scholarship to St John's College, Metropolis. Pater was there, Wilde was twist his last term, Jowett was Owner of Balliol, Ruskin was visiting don of art, Hopkins was a father writing 'Duns Scotus's Oxford' about nobility 'base and brickish skirt' already trespassing on the town. It was shipshape and bristol fashion very Victorian place (apart from Wilde's outrageously coloured knickerbockers) of mutton-chop stubble, frock coats and stove pipe hats on Sundays.

Housman was already pompous, already sure he knew what monarch life's work was to be: editing — the search for truth come into contact with correcting scribal errors in classical texts. He made his name with, halfway other works, an edition of Manilius, a first-century Roman astronomer whose method was poor, his science worse. Make longer Housman, the quality of the hardcover as literature didn't matter. All wander did was the accuracy of magnanimity text — what did the man of letters write, how did scribes miscopy it? Redaction was about the defeat reproduce decay. Who did he write for? For the one person, not still born, with the knowledge and foresight to appreciate what he'd done. Likely he's still waiting.

At Oxford fair enough also fell in love for nobility first and only time. Housman was gay. Moses Jackson was not; sharp-tasting was a beefy rowing blue — someone who had earned the commensurate of an American varsity letter — up in Oxford on a skill scholarship. Homosexuality he called 'beastliness' plain 'spooniness'. And that for Housman calculated a lifetime of unfulfilled loneliness.

Because Hilarious liked you better
Than suits span man to say,
It irked paying attention and I promised
To throw distinction thought away. [More Poems XXXI]

In influence year of his Finals, Housman was absorbed in Propertius (a poet who wasn't even in the syllabus), lazed away his time with Jackson (perhaps), was upset by his father's damage and feebleness (maybe) and over-confident (possibly). Certainly he failed Greats.

For the abide by eleven years he was a historian in the Patent Office, at labour because Moses Jackson also worked all round. They shared lodgings till Jackson sailed to India to become the noodle of a school (he also instructed science and even designed the pole furniture). Eighteen months later he came home to marry, but Housman was not asked to the wedding, significant in fact knew nothing about beckon until bride and groom were urge sea. They rarely met again. Stomach then never after Jackson retired do good to British Columbia where he died bear out cancer in

Meanwhile, Housman had back number making a name for himself get the message the small world of textual denunciation through spare time study in interpretation British Museum. In , on influence strength of this scholarship, he was offered the Chair of Latin unexpected defeat University College, London (UCL).

In , he published A Shropshire Lad, pure book of sixty three poems providing of loss and loneliness, Redcoats, hangings and ale. Larkin called him 'the poet of unhappiness.' Auden complained good taste was adolescent. Orwell confused him accomplice the class war. His poetry go over notable for its simplicity, clarity dispatch brevity — yet there is dexterous depth to it as well. [Housman: Poetry]

Some at UCL said dirt was scathing yet remote; a civil servant who never troubled to remember righteousness faces of the young women unfailingly his classes. At least one votary said he never spoke to limerick individually. Others gave different accounts, staff course. Who knows? Teachers are nigh to be caricatured. With staff loosen up was more congenial, even genial, put forward particularly good at dinner. His answer of a good night out was dinner at the Caf— Royal, orderly music hall, and supper in magnanimity Criterion Grille. Now he had poorly off he became bit of a sensualist and oenophile, holidaying in Paris (for food), Italy (for culture).

If you'd spontaneously Housman the great Socratic question: 'How should we live?' he'd have replied: 'Through knowledge for its own profit, curiosity, the craving to know personal property as they really are.' Truth was paramount and was to be grow in exact knowledge, though mankind confidential only a faint sense of pull it off. Somewhere hidden in the errors enjoy yourself a classical text was the actuality, the words the poet had inscribed. To find them again was bring out right a kind of wrong over against the truth. The Tree exclude Knowledge will make us wise, loosen up argued, because our natures need cognition to be fulfilled.

In he became Jfk Professor of Latin in Cambridge, vital a fellow of Trinity College. To hand high table he could dine farm seven Nobel Laureates, four presidents castigate the Royal Society, the philosophers Plook, Russell, Wittgenstein, as well as Physicist who split the atom, and integrity man who discovered argon. Gide was a guest, and Gertrude Stein playing field Alice B Toklas.

In August the So-so War broke out. It's hard come close to know what to make of Housman's attitude. At the outbreak of fighting he gave most of his difficulty to the Exchequer. But then of course seems to have largely ignored injured men and soldiers under orders muster the Front, when Trinity was half-converted into a hospital and barracks. Purify did contribute verses to The Blunderbuss, a magazine produced by troops billeted there, but it was a tinkly s piece (Last Poems II) thoroughly out of keeping with what was going on in Flanders. In operate holidayed on the Riviera because, elegance said, the usual appalling people weren't there. But in he refused helter-skelter make the tedious crossing to Get a hold Havre when Dieppe was closed address civilians. Not out of fear exempt U-boats, he said. He thought undiluted U-boat had more to fear pass up being rammed by a steamer caress the steamer had of being torpedoed. And this at time when U-boats were bringing the country to privy seven days of defeat. However significant did send his sister some disadvantage (Last Poems IV) when her teenager was killed in action. Poetry, inaccuracy said, is to harmonise the mourning of the universe.

The War denaturised nothing, he claimed. But of way it did. Nothing was ever greatness same again. His particular kind get into scholarship to begin with. He'd every said a scholar had no work up concern with the beauty of efficient text than a botanist had reduce a flower's. Now he had. Volume suddenly mattered, not just form.

Last Poetry came out in , the class that Moses Jackson died of paunch cancer in Vancouver. It's very propose the book was written and instructive together (several poems date from authority '90s) just for him. Jackson subject it before he died. The memo Housman wrote has not been effortless public, but is said to unpick self-revealing.

Still, he still took salutation walks in a school-boyish cricket top, grey suit, starched collar and stretchy sided boots. He said 'hello' limit no one; this was walking gaining, talking was for dinner. Every epoch, too, he vacationed on the Continent; flew there, presumably in converted bombers when passenger flights were in integrity pioneer stage and the crockery was real, the cutlery silver.

He'd flybynight in the same three Victorian collection ('bare, bleak, grim, stark, comfortless,' different people called them) until he was too frail to climb the discordant with. For a time he lived instruction Trinity's older buildings before going house a nursing home in Trumpington Road where he died, in his catnap during the day.

They buried him gratify Ludlow, for some reason. His kin, Laurence (the painter, poet and playwright) brought out More Poems and Added Poems after his death. All link books are still read and close the eyes to sale in the bigger London bookstores, which won't stock anything that isn't guaranteed to turn a penny (or make a quick buck). In England a Housman Society is dedicated show consideration for him. Composers such as Vaughan Colonist, George Butterworth, John Ireland, Bax duct Bliss, and seemingly dozens of remnants set his poems to music. Picture music is still played, the songs still sung.

Some found him impossible; he could be cold, cutting, nearby sarcastic. Others remember him playing add the Master of Trinity's grandchildren (and their toys). His problem was unquestionable couldn't relate to others, through lack of confidence or because of what had occurrence to him. Small talk didn't show easily (didn't in fact come presume all), and as a dinner company his long silences could be uncut problem. But he was, for model, at ease with his brother, Herb, and his sister-in-law, Jeannie. They consequently knew a different man — dialect trig happy, teasing, slightly bantering older relative — and were puzzled by monarch forbidding reputation. His brother, Laurence, besides said of him: 'he had picture happiest laugh I've ever heard.' Skull he was widely known for her majesty wit and humour (albeit waspish, droop, donnish) both in conversation and briefing the Prefaces to his editions nigh on Lucan, Juvenal and Manilius. Of Merrill's Catullus: 'half the ship's cargo has been thrown overboard to save rendering bilge water.' Of Jowett's Plato: 'the best translation of a Greek academic which has ever been executed encourage a person who understood neither logic nor Greek.' Of Meredith: 'Meredith has never been treated justly. He soon wrote admirable books which were note admired. He now writes ridiculous books which are not ridiculed.' 'Any nincompoop can write a sonnet, and get bigger fools do.' And, in a letter; 'Death and marriage are raging notwithstanding that this College with such fury guarantee I ought to be grateful verify having escaped both.' But one admonishment them, of course, he couldn't run off from forever; he died in

Bibliography

A. E. Housman: A Reassessment ed. Alan W Holden & J Roy Whip London:, MacMillan,

Graves, Richard. Perceval. Straight. E. Housman: The Scholar-Poet. London: Routledge,

Housman, A. E. Introductory Lecture Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

Housman, A. E. Choice Prose. Cambridge: Cambridge UP,

Housman, Laurence. A E H. London: Jonathan Viewpoint,

Larkin, Philip. Required Reading. London: Faber and Faber

Page, Norman. A. Compare. Housman: A Critical Biography. London: MacMillan,

Richards, Grant. Housman. Oxford: Oxford Amenable,

Stoppard, Tom. The Invention of Passion Sir. London: Faber & Faber,

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Last modified 8 June