Customer Reviews

A Shropshire Lad (Dover Thrift Editions)

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the title of 'A Shropshire Lad' indicates both rural specificity and human universality, and it is in the gap between the two that the poems' tension and tragedy lie. they evoke a timeless pastoral world, of streams, plains and roses; of ploughing, carousing and love-making; of villages, churches and football; all belonging to the unchanging cycle of the seasons. In this context man as a type, as a member of a community, is eternal also, not least in the folk idiom in which Housman's classical clarity is decaptively cloaked.

as an individual, however, the 'lad' is insubstantial, doomed to leave or die as rural life continues unchanging without him. Many of the poems are narrated by exiles or ghosts, crushed to find the old routine the same as if they had never existed - the phantom of 'Is my team ploughing?' discovers even his grieving sweetheart now warm in his interlocutor's bed; he of 'Bredon Hill' plans his wedding, only to attend his own funeral.

Housman uses a direct and simple vocabulary and metre with devastating resonances, the very music of the poetry at once rooted in the eternal communal land and yet indicative of sadness and loss. Written in 1896, the irony of death and change in the never-ending countryside was doubled by the reality that the countryside was changing, that the centuries-old lifestyles were being encroached on by industry and modernity - what seemed to be inviolable itself becomes obsolete. in hindsight, a third, poignant irony is added - within 20 years of publication, these lads would be sent to the slaughter in World War One, as previsioned in 'On the idle hill of summer'. One of Housman's greatest admirers, the composer George Butterworth, who wrote two song-cycles based on these beautiful poems, would be one such victim.

This review refers to the Dover Thrift Edition Paperback of "A Shropshire Lad"....

Without getting too analytical of the poetry itself or the meaning of Housman's works,as I am not a poet myself, I will say that I throughly enjoyed this edition of "A Shropshire Lad". Although Housman's words at times may seem a bit like the antedote to exhilaration, he seems to speak from the heart and wisely about the cycle of life. The never ending scheme of things.The seasons and the earth changing year by year. Young men falling in love, going off to war, coming home wounded, dead, or finding their loves no longer want them. It brought to mind for me, the song by Peter, Paul and Mary "Where Have All The Flowers Gone".

Although these words were first published well over 100 years ago, I found there is still meaning in his words.Many of the lines in this book I found to still be quoted today. For example in poem LVI-"The Day of Battle", he ponders this:

"Comrade, if to turn and fly
Made a soldier never die,
Fly I would, for who would not?
Tis sure no pleasure to be shot

But since the man that runs away
Lives to die another day,
And cowards' funerals, when they come,
Are not wept so well at home,........."

This Dover Thrift Edition is a great value for the price. It contains all sixty-three original poems of "A Shropshire Lad" including XIX-"To An Athlete Dying Young"(which you've heard if you have seen the film "Out of Africa"). It has an index with notes on the text which will clarify some of the names and places Housman uses that might be of geographic or historical value to the reader, and also has an index of the first lines, helpful in finding a specific poem. It's a small lightweight book you can easily throw in your purse, briefcase or even a large pocket, that you can pull out to read while you have time to kill or while traveling. It's something to add to your cart when you need just a little bit more to put you into that free-shipping catagory!

Dover Thrift has many of these little books of great literary works, I plan on adding more to my collection....enjoy....Laurie

Housman is one of those very popular poets that are looked down by your English professor as being low brow and unfit for the elect. If you're the type who claims to belong to these elite, good luck for your choice of a sour life, you should never be caught with this book.

Everybody else, dip in, the water is just fine.

In Housman's poetry, there is sense, and ideas you can understand on first reading. Moreover, there are rare qualities you seldom see nowadays - rhyme, rhythm, correct grammar, proper punctuation, and words spelled so you can confirm from any English dictionary that they were used right.

Be warned however that Housman's themes are repetitious (probably explains why he never wrote much poetry - perhaps he realized he is beginning to sound like a broken record even for the little poetry he was able to write), mostly about the transitoriness of youth and the tender sadness of death. Reading him too much too often is like listening to the greatest hits collection of a minor singer - after the third song, you get tired. But you did enjoy the first two.

When I first bought this book in April 2000, the list price was only $1.00 and Amazon's price was 80c. It was good value then even for someone living in Asia. Now that there's a special surcharge, I guess it's just good value if shipping cost is minimized.

For your money, however, try to find the old edition with line drawings. That was the first time I read Housman, and the line drawings realy enhanced the haunting loneliness of the sad poems.

...in A. E. Housman's "A Shropshire Lad." He is obsessed with death and the brevity of time. He is determined to wring meaning out of a teen soldier's blood-soaked shirt, to bring beauty out of tragedy.

Poets' critical reputations move up and down like a sine curve. Given the increasingly unread status of poetry, however, one would think that Housman's rep would be on the upswing, since he presents his ideas with clear language, pleasant rhyme, simple trochaic or iambic meter, archetypal imagery, and intense emotion; his is among the most plain and accessible poetry a major author has ever crafted, a boon to the genre at a time it's largely being ignored.

Still, people tend to read Housman wrong. They claim he's either promoting or deriding war. In fact, he's doing neither; war is simply an unfortunate fact of life for Housman. People must confuse him for Wilfred Owen, who actually does fulminate against war or Rudyard Kipling, who actually does promote it.

... Even the lovely rural setting of the poems, which in another book he refers to as "the land of lost content," suggests the rapture and freedom of boyhood is being mourned as it passes. Battle death is often a stand-in here for the death of innocence. War is only slightly more awful toward the body than time itself. War is only Housman's metaphor; love is his objective.

I bought this book of poetry because of a recommendation from a close author friend of mine. Since I bought "A shropshire lad," I have read it three times, highlighted my favorites and enjoyed every verse.

The great thing about Housman is that his rhyme scheme seems effortless. Whereas other poets seem to struggle and adjust a story to fit the rhyme, Housman's poems flow naturally and are lyrical. The subjects of his poems are very royal and I enjoy them a great deal.

If you are looking to enjoy some poetry that isn't hard to understand and is among the best ever written, I hihgly recommend "A Shropshire Lad."

I adore this book of poems, and one of my most prized possessions is a very old, leather bound edition that I found in an antique store. That one is safely tucked away to prevent further deterioration, so a nice Dover Thrift version to carry around with me was just what the doctor ordered. If you're not a big poetry fan, this may be the right "starter" for you. Houseman's poems are simple yet thought-provoking, and they all strike me as hauntingly beautiful. This is my favorite book of poetry to just read straight through. Sometimes I read it all the way through at a sitting and other times I'll just read one or two and ponder a while. Houseman's themes of the transience of youth and the inevitability of death are easily relatable to all human beings, and his diction is so simple and direct that his meaning is usually clear. I recently ordered several of these to give out to my students (I teach high school) because the price is so unbelievably cheap. Briliant, beautiful poetry for $2! Need I say more?

As with most high school students, I was required to read and analyze "To An Athlete Dying Young." Its simple structure, elementary language and subject matter to which I could relate all made it one of my favorite poems at the time. Now, years later, it remains very interesting and drew me into A Shropshire Lad. I was curious to see the other material Housman published and was thrilled to find that all of his work shared similar attractive qualities. His poetry is accessible to even the most novice poetry readers (like myself) and clearly expresses complicated thoughts with beatiful language. Housman's empasis on the brevity of life, death and war are not happy topics, but they are realistic and it is valuable to consider his concise thoughts. I think this book, which essentially follows the life cycle, is full of fascinating poetry that anyone will enjoy, no matter what level you wish to analyze the material. It is a terrific collection.

I think that Housman's "When I was one and twenty" was probably one of the first poems I ever memorized. I don't know where I ran across it--probably in a middle school English class--but I immediately fell in love with it. I do know that his Shropshire Lad was the first poetry book I ever bought, and I read and reread it until the covers almost fell off.

What I think I loved in Shropshire Lad was its bittersweet, nostalgic tone (it's curious that adolescents, who have so few memories themselves and even fewer tragic ones, are generally so attracted to melancholy poetry). Young men who die in their prime and who now dwell "in the nation that is not" (XII), Housman's continuous refrain that "the sun moves always west" (VII), make the entire volume a calm momento mori. Mortality is made almost attractive--or at least, in a very British sort of way, respectable.

Alas. Returning to Shropshire many, many years after I first encountered it, I fear that I find Housman rather more mawkish than memorable. His poetry is frequently clumsy, with awkward lines crammed or stretched for the sake of meter, and his sentiments--well, sentimental. I still think there is some very good verse in the book: "When I was one and twenty" has stood the test of time, and the untitled poem XXXII is magnificent: "The stuff of life to knit me/Blew hither: here am I." But for the most part, A Shropshire Lad is one of those places I enjoyed in my youth. I have fond, tender memories of visiting it all those years ago, and I've taken away a couple of especially fine poems. But it's a place to not be revisited, at least by me.