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A.E. Housman
A.E. Housman (1859-1936) was an English classical scholar and poet who
had an enormous influence on many British poets and musicians.A.E. Housman (1859-1936) was
both a celebrated poet and the foremost classicist of his day. His poetry was set to music
by numerous composers including Arthur Somervell, Ralph Vaughan Williams, George
Butterworth, Ivor Gurney, John Ireland and Samuel Barber. Housman's painstaking vocation, to
restore classical manuscripts by correcting textual errors, took up virtually the whole of
his working life. A seemingly inaccessible, aloof man, he never set out tobe a professional
poet, yet poetry poured out of him and became his monument. His renowned A Shropshire Lad
and Last Poems were born of an inner crisis, sparked by a profound but unreciprocated
attachment fora fellow undergraduate. To be sexually different in the time of Oscar Wilde
was to invite ostracism and disgust. This fact, allied with his secretiveness and penchant
for irony, reinforced his reticence on personal matters. Untilnow, he has remained a hidden
personality, held in the public mind as prim and grim. This biography reveals by contrast a
man of many facets, one companionable in small groups, generous to a fault, and always on
the lookout for humour and fun; a master of English prose; a witty and compelling
after-dinner speaker; an occasional writer of nonsense verse; a frequenter of the music
hall; an intrepid early traveller by air; and a connoisseur of food and wine. Drawing on
Housman's published letters and on 81 significant new finds, Edgar Vincent conjures up a new
Housman, created out of his reactions to the events of his life as he experienced them. It
weaves together his scholarly life and the biographical elements in his poetry to examine
his emotional and sexual needs with dispassion and empathy and to uncover his hidden
sensibilities and creative world. EDGAR VINCENT read English at St Catherine's College,
Oxford. Following Oxford he was commissioned in the Navy, spending most of his time with the
Royal Marines. Subsequently he worked for Imperial Chemical Industries for thirty years. He
then fulfilled a life-longambition to write his book Love & Fame, published by
Yale University Press in 2003. The book was shortlisted for the BBC 4 Samuel Johnson Prize
for non-fiction, was a New York Times Notable Book and was named one ofAtlantic Monthly's
Books of the Year.
had an enormous influence on many British poets and musicians.A.E. Housman (1859-1936) was
both a celebrated poet and the foremost classicist of his day. His poetry was set to music
by numerous composers including Arthur Somervell, Ralph Vaughan Williams, George
Butterworth, Ivor Gurney, John Ireland and Samuel Barber. Housman's painstaking vocation, to
restore classical manuscripts by correcting textual errors, took up virtually the whole of
his working life. A seemingly inaccessible, aloof man, he never set out tobe a professional
poet, yet poetry poured out of him and became his monument. His renowned A Shropshire Lad
and Last Poems were born of an inner crisis, sparked by a profound but unreciprocated
attachment fora fellow undergraduate. To be sexually different in the time of Oscar Wilde
was to invite ostracism and disgust. This fact, allied with his secretiveness and penchant
for irony, reinforced his reticence on personal matters. Untilnow, he has remained a hidden
personality, held in the public mind as prim and grim. This biography reveals by contrast a
man of many facets, one companionable in small groups, generous to a fault, and always on
the lookout for humour and fun; a master of English prose; a witty and compelling
after-dinner speaker; an occasional writer of nonsense verse; a frequenter of the music
hall; an intrepid early traveller by air; and a connoisseur of food and wine. Drawing on
Housman's published letters and on 81 significant new finds, Edgar Vincent conjures up a new
Housman, created out of his reactions to the events of his life as he experienced them. It
weaves together his scholarly life and the biographical elements in his poetry to examine
his emotional and sexual needs with dispassion and empathy and to uncover his hidden
sensibilities and creative world. EDGAR VINCENT read English at St Catherine's College,
Oxford. Following Oxford he was commissioned in the Navy, spending most of his time with the
Royal Marines. Subsequently he worked for Imperial Chemical Industries for thirty years. He
then fulfilled a life-longambition to write his book Love & Fame, published by
Yale University Press in 2003. The book was shortlisted for the BBC 4 Samuel Johnson Prize
for non-fiction, was a New York Times Notable Book and was named one ofAtlantic Monthly's
Books of the Year.
737 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 16, 2018
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