The Collected Poems of A.E. Housman

A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems

A wonderful collection of Housman's much-loved poetry, new to Penguin Classics

A.E. Housman was one of the best-loved poets of his day, and A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems is a collection of poems whose elegant simplicity of form belies their hidden complexities. This Penguin Classics edition is introduced by Nick Laird with revisions by Archie Burnett and an afterword by John Sparrow. 
 
'What are those blue remembered hills, 
What spires, what farms are those?' 
 
In this collection, A. E. Housman's poems, including'To an Athlete Dying Young', 'Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now' and 'When I Was One-and-Twenty', conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss and sadness. Their scope is wide - ranging from religious doubt and doomed love to intense nostalgia for the countryside and patriotic celebration of the life of the soldier - and they are made all the more memorable by their distinctive diction and perfectly modulated rhythm and sound. This volume brings together the works Housman published in his lifetime, A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922), along with the posthumous selections More Poems and Additional Poems, and three translations of extracts from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides that display his mastery of Classical literature. 
 
This edition has been revised by Archie Burnett and includes updated notes on the text and indexes of first lines and titles. In his afterword, John Sparrow discusses Housman's methods of writing and melancholic temperament. 
 
Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) usually known as A.E. Housman, was an English poet and classical scholar, now best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. 
 
If you enjoyed A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems, you might like John Clare's Selected Poems, also available in Penguin Classics.

Alfred Edward Housman (March 26, 1859 - April 30, 1936), usually known as A.E. Housman, was an English poet and classical scholar, now best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. 
 
Nick Laird was born in 1975 in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. He was a scholar at Cambridge University and spent a year at Harvard as a visiting fellow. He also worked for several years as a litigator and arbitration lawyer in London and Warsaw. The author of the poetry collections To A Fault (Faber/Norton) and On Purpose (Faber/Norton), he has received several prestigious awards for both poetry and fiction, including the 2005 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and the Ireland Chair of Poetry Award. His first novel, Utterly Monkey (Fourth Estate/Harper Collins) won the Betty Trask Prize for best first novel and was shortlisted for Irish Novel of the Year and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. His second novel, Glover's Mistake, was published by 4th Estate in the spring of 2009.

A. E. Housman was one of the best-loved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss. They are expressed in simple rhythms, yet show a fine ear for the subtleties of metre and alliteration. His scope is wide - ranging from religious doubt to intense nostalgia for the countryside. This volume brings together 'A Shropshire Lad' (1896) and 'Last Poems' (1922), along with the posthumous selections 'More Poems' and 'Additional Poems', and three translations of extracts from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides that display his mastery of Classical literature.

A Shropshire Lad

A. E. Housman (1859-1936) was born in the English countryside and felt affection for it all his life. He worked as a clerk before becoming an esteemed Latin scholar, but it was the publication of this, his first book of poems, that would bring him lasting fame.

This magical and poignant evocation of coming of age in the countryside describes lovers in secluded lanes, cricket and church bells, cherry trees hung with snow and woods full of bluebells. Yet in A Shropshire Lad the fields and hills are also places of loss and sorrow, where men die young or are sent far away to fight in foreign wars. Aching with longing for a vanished world, these exquisite verses are a meditation on the fleeting nature of love, youth and happiness. 
 
Generations of inhabitants have helped shape the English countryside - but it has profoundly shaped us too.It has provoked a huge variety of responses from artists, writers, musicians and people who live and work on the land - as well as those who are travelling through it.English Journeys celebrates this long tradition with a series of twenty books on all aspects of the countryside, from stargazey pie and country churches, to man's relationship with nature and songs celebrating the patterns of the countryside (as well as ghosts and love-struck soldiers).

A.E. Housman: Collected Poems

Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936), usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known for his collection of poems A Shropshire Lad. His poems conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss and sadness.

A. E. Housman, being one of the most famous and widely read poets of the early twentieth century, is certainly worthy of praise. His 'Collected Poems' are therefore a valuable read because they allow readers to gain an impression of the author's mind, opinions and lifestyle. Furthermore, they simultaneously depict a man who was deeply pessimistic and obsessed with death, and, on the other hand, illustrate a man who was also very much concerned with love, youth, life and the fleetingness of the these concepts.It is easy to understand why Housman's sensitive and sympathetic depictions of heroic English soldiers influenced and affected his readers, as his poetry is often written in an uncomplicated, yet sensitive style, which allows readers to feel as if they are witnessing events almost as the poet writes them down. These poems are also intriguing to read if you are a Shakespeare fan, as it is possible to spot many Shakespeare references in Housman's writing. A glossary or footnotes at the back of this book would be appreciated in any further editions, in order to allow readers to gain more understanding of the other poets and authors that Housman was influenced by. In brief, this collection presents the literary highlights of Housman's career, and this will be most appreciated by readers new to Housman's poetry.

A.E. Housman

A Shropshire Lad was first published in 1896 at A. E. Housman's own expense. The collection of lyrical poems became hugely successful following the Second Boer War and World War I, with themes such as nostalgia for one's home and the patriotic celebration of the life of the solider striking a chord with English readers. This collection contains Housman's greatest works, demonstrating the lyrical precision and emotional depth of his writing. It includes 'To an Athlete Dying Young', a lyrical elegy to a life lost at its prime and 'When I was One-and-Twenty', a love poem on the ignorance of youth.

A.E. Housman

Books by A.E. Housman

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