His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are still considered authoritative. ==Early life== The eldest of seven children, Housman was born at Valley House in Fockbury, a hamlet on the outskirts of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, to Sarah Jane (née Williams, married 17 June 1858 in Woodchester, Gloucester) and Edward Housman (whose family came from Lancaster), and was baptised on 24 April 1859 at Christ Church, in Catshill.
Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936), usually known as A.
His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are still considered authoritative. ==Early life== The eldest of seven children, Housman was born at Valley House in Fockbury, a hamlet on the outskirts of Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, to Sarah Jane (née Williams, married 17 June 1858 in Woodchester, Gloucester) and Edward Housman (whose family came from Lancaster), and was baptised on 24 April 1859 at Christ Church, in Catshill.
His mother died on his twelfth birthday, and his father, a country solicitor, remarried to an elder cousin, Lucy, in 1873.
In 1877 he won an open scholarship to St John's College, Oxford, and went there to study classics.
Though Housman obtained a first in classical Moderations in 1879, his dedication to textual analysis led him to neglect the ancient history and philosophy that formed part of the Greats curriculum.
The two shared a flat with Jackson's brother Adalbert until 1885, when Housman moved to lodgings of his own, probably after Jackson responded to a declaration of love by telling Housman that he could not reciprocate his feelings.
He also completed an edition of Propertius, which however was rejected by both Oxford University Press and Macmillan in 1885, and was destroyed after his death.
When he returned briefly to England in 1889, to marry, Housman was not invited to the wedding and knew nothing about it until the couple had left the country.
Adalbert Jackson died in 1892 and Housman commemorated him in a poem published as "XLII – A.J.J." of More Poems (1936). Meanwhile, Housman pursued his classical studies independently, and published scholarly articles on Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles.
He gradually acquired such a high reputation that in 1892 he was offered and accepted the professorship of Latin at University College London (UCL).
After one publisher had turned it down, he helped subsidise its publication in 1896.
The book has been in print continuously since May 1896. The poems are marked by pessimism and preoccupation with death, without religious consolation (Housman had become an atheist while still an undergraduate).
In 1904 the cycle A Shropshire Lad was set by Arthur Somervell, who in 1898 had begun to develop the concept of the English song-cycle in his version of Tennyson's "Maud".
When asked later why he had stopped writing about Greek verse, he responded, "I found that I could not attain to excellence in both." In 1911 he took the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his life. Between 1903 and 1930 Housman published his critical edition of Manilius's Astronomicon in five volumes.
In 1904 the cycle A Shropshire Lad was set by Arthur Somervell, who in 1898 had begun to develop the concept of the English song-cycle in his version of Tennyson's "Maud".
Stephen Banfield believes it was acquaintance with Somervell's cycle that led other composers to set Housman: Ralph Vaughan Williams is likely to have attended the first performance at the Aeolian Hall on 3 February 1905.
His well-known cycle of six songs On Wenlock Edge, for string quartet, tenor and piano, was published in 1909.
Between 1909 and 1911 George Butterworth produced settings in two collections, Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad and Bredon Hill and Other Songs.
These later poems, mostly written before 1910, show a greater variety of subject and form than those in A Shropshire Lad but lack its consistency.
When asked later why he had stopped writing about Greek verse, he responded, "I found that I could not attain to excellence in both." In 1911 he took the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his life. Between 1903 and 1930 Housman published his critical edition of Manilius's Astronomicon in five volumes.
Between 1909 and 1911 George Butterworth produced settings in two collections, Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad and Bredon Hill and Other Songs.
He also wrote the orchestral tone poem A Shropshire Lad, first performed at Leeds Festival in 1912. Ivor Gurney was another composer who made renowned settings of Housman's poems.
Towards the end of World War I he was working on his cycle Ludlow and Teme, for voice and string quartet (published in 1919), and went on to compose the eight-song cycle The Western Playland in 1921.
In the early 1920s, when Moses Jackson was dying in Canada, Housman wanted to assemble his best unpublished poems so that Jackson could read them before his death.
Towards the end of World War I he was working on his cycle Ludlow and Teme, for voice and string quartet (published in 1919), and went on to compose the eight-song cycle The Western Playland in 1921.
Although introverted by nature, Housman formed strong friendships with two roommates, Moses John Jackson (1858 – 14 January 1923) and A.
When asked later why he had stopped writing about Greek verse, he responded, "I found that I could not attain to excellence in both." In 1911 he took the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his life. Between 1903 and 1930 Housman published his critical edition of Manilius's Astronomicon in five volumes.
He did not speak in public about his poems until 1933, when he gave a lecture "The Name and Nature of Poetry", arguing there that poetry should appeal to emotions rather than to the intellect. Housman died, aged 77, in Cambridge.
Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936), usually known as A.
He published his new collection as Last Poems (1922), feeling that his inspiration was exhausted and that he should not publish more in his lifetime. After Housman's death in 1936, his brother, Laurence published further poems in More Poems (1936), A.
Housman: A Sketch Together with a List of his Writings and Indexes to his Classical Papers (Cambridge 1936) Graves, Richard Perceval, A.E.
E .H.: Some Poems, Some Letters and a Personal Memoir by his Brother (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937) Page, Norman, 'Housman, Alfred Edward (1859–1936)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) Palmer, Christopher and Stephen Banfield, 'A.
No one can tell for certain which was which." ===De Amicitia (Of Friendship)=== In 1942 Laurence Housman also deposited an essay entitled "A.
Translated into English, the memorial reads: From 1947, University College London's academic common room was dedicated to his memory as the Housman Room.
The Penguin edition of 1956 includes an introduction by John Sparrow. Manuscript Poems: Eight Hundred Lines of Hitherto Un-collected Verse from the Author's Notebooks, ed.
Encounter (October 1967, pp. 33–40). Parker, Peter.
Blue plaques followed later elsewhere, the first being on Byron Cottage in Highgate in 1969, recording the fact that A Shropshire Lad was written there.
The latter were encouraged by the Housman Society, which was founded in the town in 1973.
A 1976 catalogue listed 400 musical settings of Housman's poems.
Housman: The Scholar-Poet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), p. 155 Housman, Laurence, A.
The work of local sculptor Kenneth Potts, it was unveiled on 22 March 1985. The blue plaques in Worcestershire were set up on the centenary of A Shropshire Lad in 1996.
Archie Burnett (2007) ==See also== The Invention of Love ==Footnotes== ==Sources== Critchley, Julian, 'Homage to a lonely lad', Weekend Telegraph (UK), 23 April 1988. Cunningham, Valentine ed., The Victorians: An Anthology of Poetry and Poetics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) Gow, A.
Housman: The Critical Heritage, a collection of reviews and essays on Housman's poetry (London: Routledge 1992) Holden, A.
Housman's Moral Irony", Victorian Poetry, Volume 48, Number 2, Summer 2010 (267–285) Shaw, Robin, "Housman's Places" (The Housman Society, 1995) Summers, Claude J.
ed., The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1995) ==Further reading== Blocksidge, Martin.
The work of local sculptor Kenneth Potts, it was unveiled on 22 March 1985. The blue plaques in Worcestershire were set up on the centenary of A Shropshire Lad in 1996.
Housman, Bryn Mawr College Special Collections Recording of part of the 1996 Shropshire Lad centenary reading by the Housman Society Catalogus Philologorum Classicorum ===Poems=== Profile and poems at Poetry Foundation Complete poems of A.
E Housman – A Reassessment (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 1999) Housman, Laurence.
Archie Burnett (2007) ==See also== The Invention of Love ==Footnotes== ==Sources== Critchley, Julian, 'Homage to a lonely lad', Weekend Telegraph (UK), 23 April 1988. Cunningham, Valentine ed., The Victorians: An Anthology of Poetry and Poetics (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) Gow, A.
Housman', The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan, 2001) Richardson, Donna, "The Can Of Ail: A.
Housman" New Yorker article (5 pages) by Anthony Lane 19 February 2001 The Housman Society The Papers of A.
Housman (Associated University Presse, 2002) Gardner, Philip, ed.
A cherry tree was planted there in his memory (see A Shropshire Lad II) and replaced by the Housman Society in 2003 with a new cherry tree nearby. ==Poetry== ===A Shropshire Lad=== During his years in London, Housman completed A Shropshire Lad, a cycle of 63 poems.
E .H.: Some Poems, Some Letters and a Personal Memoir by his Brother (London: Jonathan Cape, 1937) Page, Norman, 'Housman, Alfred Edward (1859–1936)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) Palmer, Christopher and Stephen Banfield, 'A.
In September of the same year a memorial window lozenge was dedicated at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey The following year saw the première of Tom Stoppard's play The Invention of Love, whose subject is the relationship between Housman and Moses Jackson. As the 150th anniversary of his birth approached, London University inaugurated its Housman lectures on classical subjects in 2005, initially given every second year then annually after 2011.
Housman" 5 July 2007 BBC Profile 24 June 2009 "Star man": An article in the TLS by Robert Douglas Fairhurst, 20 June 2007 "Lost Horizon: The sad and savage wit of A.
The anniversary itself in 2009 saw the publication of a new edition of A Shropshire Lad, including pictures from across Shropshire taken by local photographer Gareth Thomas.
Housman" 5 July 2007 BBC Profile 24 June 2009 "Star man": An article in the TLS by Robert Douglas Fairhurst, 20 June 2007 "Lost Horizon: The sad and savage wit of A.
Housman's Moral Irony", Victorian Poetry, Volume 48, Number 2, Summer 2010 (267–285) Shaw, Robin, "Housman's Places" (The Housman Society, 1995) Summers, Claude J.
In September of the same year a memorial window lozenge was dedicated at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey The following year saw the première of Tom Stoppard's play The Invention of Love, whose subject is the relationship between Housman and Moses Jackson. As the 150th anniversary of his birth approached, London University inaugurated its Housman lectures on classical subjects in 2005, initially given every second year then annually after 2011.
Housman : A Single Life (Sussex Academic Press, 2016) Brink, C.
Housman country : into the heart of England (Little, Brown, 2016) ==External links== London Review of Books review of "The Letters of A.E.
As of 2020, Lieder Net Archive records 615 settings of 187 texts. ==Commemorations== The earliest commemoration of Housman was in the chapel of Trinity College in Cambridge, where there is a memorial brass on the south wall.
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