The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman [Paperback]

A. E. Housman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1971

This volume constitutes the authorized canon of A.E. Housman’s verse as it was established in 1939, three years after his death. In contains A Shropshire Lad, Last Poems, More Poems, the Additional Poems, and the three translations from A.W. Pollard’s anthology, Odes from the Greek Dramatists.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks; Revised edition (April 15, 1971)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805005471
• ISBN-13: 978-0805005479
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #477,639 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Should not be missed., March 25, 2002

By 

I. Sondel "I. Sondel - lover of the arts" (Tallahassee, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman (Paperback)

Unrequited love and youthful death are the author's recurrent themes. Always forthright and devoid of the esoteric and modernistic qualities of more revered poets, Housman's work, though imbued with a pronounced melancholy, is never strident or sanctimonious. It is through the symmetry of theme that Housman achieves the solemnity which lends these justly celebrated poems their stature.

I feel that any discussion of A. E. Housman's poetry should first acknowledge that he was never a poet in the same sense as Whitman, Auden or Ginsberg. he was first, and foremost, a scholar, the Chair of Latin at Cambridge and an academic legend. Thus it seems churlish for his detractors to take the rather meagre amount of poetry he produced and deride it for it's lack of thematic multiplicity.

A closeted homosexual, Housman's poetry is perhaps most distinctive for it allusive qualities. One revels in the allegorical poem XVIII from Additional Poems: "Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair." Perhaps my favorite in this collection full of favorites is XXXI from More Poems:

"Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
'Good-bye', said you, 'forget me.'
'I will, no fear' said I.

If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word."

Haunting. First rate. A masterful collection.

26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Collection, February 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman (Paperback)

Housman is a wonderful, lyrical poet. I bought this collection after having seen The Invention of Love on the London stage.

Most beautiful of all, to my mind, is the poem entitled "To an Athlete Dying Young". This was the eulogy read by Isak Dinesen at Denys Finch-Hatton's funeral in the movie "Out of Africa". The poem, which was originally included in "A Shropshire Lad" (1896) begins:

"The time you won your town the race, We chaired you through the market place. Man and boy stood cheering by and home we brought you shoulder high. Today the road all runners come, Shoulder-high we bring you home. And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of a stiller town. Smart lad! to slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay And early though the laurel grows It withers quicker than the rose... And round that early laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find, unwithered on its curls, A garland. Briefer than a girl's."

A very moving and sad poem. Many of Housman's other poems are of a similar, outstanding quality. He was not a prolific poet, but he was certainly a great one. Great pleasure will be found in this collection.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical Companion, December 5, 2003

By 

Joanna Rifkin (Cambridge, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Collected Poems of A. E. Housman (Paperback)

I don't know what I'd do without this book. I stumbled on Housman more or less by accident in an anthology and just fell in love -- so much emotion so perfectly crystallized in such lovely little lyrics, beautiful regardless of what connection you make to it. I can't recommend this highly enough; somehow, despite the melancholy, Housman's verse retains a power to comfort and assure in even the most dire of situations. That, I suppose, is why it was written years ago "for those unhappy fellows, unborn and unbegot, for them to read when they're in trouble and I am not."