Housman Country

Housman Country PDF Author: Peter Parker
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374709351
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
“Parker’s beautiful Housman Country tells you everything you want to know about the life and influence of England’s most satirised but inimitable poets.” —Evening Standard A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Nominated for the 2017 PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad made little impression when it was first published in 1896 but has since become one of the best-loved volumes of poetry in the English language. Its evocation of the English countryside, thwarted love, and a yearning for things lost is as potent today as it was more than a century ago, and the book has never been out of print. In Housman Country, Peter Parker explores the lives of A. E. Housman and his most famous book, and in doing so shows how A Shropshire Lad has permeated English life and culture since its publication. The poems were taken to war by soldiers who wanted to carry England in their pockets, were adapted by composers trying to create a new kind of English music, and have influenced poetry, fiction, music, and drama right up to the present day. Everyone has a personal “land of lost content” with “blue remembered hills,” and Housman has been a tangible and far-reaching presence in a startling range of work, from the war poets and Ralph Vaughan Williams to Inspector Morse and Morrissey. Housman Country is a vivid exploration of England and Englishness, in which Parker maps out terrain that is as historical and emotional as it is topographical. “[A] rich blend of literary criticism and cultural history.” —The Spectator

Housman Country

Housman Country PDF Author: Peter Parker
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374709351
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 616

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Book Description
“Parker’s beautiful Housman Country tells you everything you want to know about the life and influence of England’s most satirised but inimitable poets.” —Evening Standard A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Nominated for the 2017 PEN/Bograd Weld Prize for Biography A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad made little impression when it was first published in 1896 but has since become one of the best-loved volumes of poetry in the English language. Its evocation of the English countryside, thwarted love, and a yearning for things lost is as potent today as it was more than a century ago, and the book has never been out of print. In Housman Country, Peter Parker explores the lives of A. E. Housman and his most famous book, and in doing so shows how A Shropshire Lad has permeated English life and culture since its publication. The poems were taken to war by soldiers who wanted to carry England in their pockets, were adapted by composers trying to create a new kind of English music, and have influenced poetry, fiction, music, and drama right up to the present day. Everyone has a personal “land of lost content” with “blue remembered hills,” and Housman has been a tangible and far-reaching presence in a startling range of work, from the war poets and Ralph Vaughan Williams to Inspector Morse and Morrissey. Housman Country is a vivid exploration of England and Englishness, in which Parker maps out terrain that is as historical and emotional as it is topographical. “[A] rich blend of literary criticism and cultural history.” —The Spectator

A Shropshire Lad

A Shropshire Lad PDF Author: Alfred Edward Housman
Publisher: Branden Books
ISBN: 9780828314558
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 111

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Book Description
A Shropshire Lad (1896) is a cycle of sixty-three poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman. A Shropshire Lad was first published in 1896 at Housman's own expense after several publishers had turned it down, much to the surprise of his colleagues and students. At first the book sold slowly, but during the Second Boer War, Housman's nostalgic depiction of rural life and young men's early deaths struck a chord with English readers and the book became a bestseller. Later, World War I further increased its popularity. Alfred Edward Housman (26 March 1859 - 30 April 1936), usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900. Their wistful evocation of doomed youth in the English countryside, in spare language and distinctive imagery, appealed strongly to late Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian taste, and to many early twentieth century English composers (beginning with Arthur Somervell) both before and after the First World War. Through its song-setting the poetry became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself. Housman was counted one of the foremost classicists of his age, and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars of all time. He established his reputation publishing as a private scholar and, on the strength and quality of his work, was appointed Professor of Latin at UCL and later, at Cambridge. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are still considered authoritative.

A.E. Housman

A.E. Housman PDF Author: Alfred Edward Housman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571207053
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 65

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Book Description
In this series a contemporary poet selects and introduces another poet of a different generation whom they have particularly admired. This selection of A.E. Housman poems are selected by Alan Hollinghurst.

A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems

A Shropshire Lad and Other Poems PDF Author: A.E. Housman
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141919159
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
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.E. Housman

A.E. Housman PDF Author: Edgar Vincent
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9781783272419
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
A.E. Housman (1859-1936) was an English classical scholar and poet who had an enormous influence on many British poets and musicians.

The Undiscovered Country

The Undiscovered Country PDF Author: William Logan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231509928
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
William Logan has been called both the "preeminent poet-critic of his generation" and the "most hated man in American poetry." For more than a quarter century, in the keen-witted and bare-knuckled reviews that have graced the New York Times Book Review, the Times Literary Supplement (London), and other journals, William Logan has delivered razor-sharp assessments of poets present and past. Logan, whom James Wolcott of Vanity Fair has praised as being "the best poetry critic in America," vividly assays the most memorable and most damning features of a poet's work. While his occasionally harsh judgments have raised some eyebrows and caused their share of controversy (a number of poets have offered to do him bodily harm), his readings offer the fresh and provocative perspectives of a passionate and uncompromising critic, unafraid to separate the tin from the gold. The longer essays in The Undiscovered Country explore a variety of poets who have shaped and shadowed contemporary verse, measuring the critical and textual traditions of Shakespeare's sonnets, Whitman's use of the American vernacular, the mystery of Marianne Moore, and Milton's invention of personality, as well as offering a thorough reconsideration of Robert Lowell and a groundbreaking analysis of Sylvia Plath's relationship to her father. Logan's unsparing "verse chronicles" present a survey of the successes and failures of contemporary verse. Neither a poet's tepid use of language nor lackadaisical ideas nor indulgence in grotesque sentimentality escapes this critic's eye. While railing against the blandness of much of today's poetry (and the critics who trumpet mediocre work), Logan also celebrates Paul Muldoon's high comedy, Anne Carson's quirky originality, Seamus Heaney's backward glances, Czeslaw Milosz's indictment of Polish poetry, and much more. Praise for Logan's previous works: Desperate Measures (2002)"When it comes to separating the serious from the fraudulent, the ambitious from the complacent, Logan has consistently shown us what is wheat and what is chaff.... The criticism we remember is neither savage nor mandarin.... There is no one in his generation more likely to write it than William Logan."—Adam Kirsch, Oxford American Reputations of the Tongue (1999)"Is there today a more stringent, caring reader of American poetry than William Logan? Reputations of the Tongue may, at moments, read harshly. But this edge is one of deeply considered and concerned authority. A poet-critic engages closely with his masters, with his peers, with those whom he regards as falling short. This collection is an adventure of sensibility."—George Steiner "William Logan's critical bedevilments-as well as his celebrations-are indispensable."—Bill Marx, Boston Globe All the Rage (1998)"William Logan's reviews are malpractice suits."—Dennis O'Driscoll, Verse "William Logan is the best practical critic around."—Christian Wiman, Poetry

Stories from the Arabian Nights

Stories from the Arabian Nights PDF Author:
Publisher: London : Hodder and Stoughton
ISBN:
Category : Arabian nights
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description


A. E. Housman

A. E. Housman PDF Author: Peter Waine
Publisher: Eyewear Publishing
ISBN: 9781913606107
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Literary Nonfiction. Poetry. A.E. HOUSMAN: A MAN OF LOST CONTENT will look at this enigmatic person, our greatest classicist who penned some of the loveliest poetry ever written. Despite the relative paucity of his poetic output--his collection, A Shropshire Lad, has never been out of print. He was offered the Poet Laureatship and the Order of Merit, but declined both. Housman could be kind and unkind, friendly and rude, gregarious and painfully silent, a recluse and a bon-viveur. He believed that life was dreadful and death welcome, but also that death ended one's enjoyment of cherry trees and of the English countryside; a gourmet who lived frugally, a traditionalist who loved to fly to France in the dangerous days of pioneering aviation. He lost his religious faith at 13 but he still acquired an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Bible which he used extensively in his poems. He never wished to be regarded as a war poet, but his verse lent solace to the bereaved in two world wars. Many of the most eminent contemporary composers attempted to put his poems to music and most failed. He was homosexual but almost certainly a repressed one. His emotional life was over by the time he was 30 and the subject of his affection was neither a homosexual nor even aware of the effect he had had on Housman. He failed his Finals but still became Professor of Latin at both University College, London and Kennedy Professor of Latin at Cambridge. Despite being regarded as our greatest classicist he devoted 27 years to translating a Latin poet of the third rank whom Housman himself summed up as "facile and frivolous." Regarded as an intellectual machine and with the tools afforded him by his mastery of great prose, Housman took up the challenge of textual criticism, rectifying in his mind the hitherto poor classical scholarship of his contemporaries and of those who preceded him. The author advocates a reason for these strange paradoxes, a theory not propounded before...

The Were-Wolf

The Were-Wolf PDF Author: Clemence Housman
Publisher: 1st World Publishing
ISBN: 9781421804255
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 72

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Book Description
Purchase one of 1st World Library's Classic Books and help support our free internet library of downloadable eBooks. Visit us online at www.1stWorldLibrary.ORG - - The great farm hall was ablaze with the fire-light, and noisy with laughter and talk and many-sounding work. None could be idle but the very young and the very old: little Rol, who was hugging a puppy, and old Trella, whose palsied hand fumbled over her knitting. The early evening had closed in, and the farm-servants, come from their outdoor work, had assembled in the ample hall, which gave space for a score or more of workers. Several of the men were engaged in carving, and to these were yielded the best place and light; others made or repaired fishing-tackle and harness, and a great seine net occupied three pairs of hands. Of the women most were sorting and mixing eider feather and chopping straw to add to it. Looms were there, though not in present use, but three wheels whirred emulously, and the finest and swiftest thread of the three ran between the fingers of the house-mistress. Near her were some children, busy too, plaiting wicks for candles and lamps. Each group of workers had a lamp in its centre, and those farthest from the fire had live heat from two braziers filled with glowing wood embers, replenished now and again from the generous hearth. But the flicker of the great fire was manifest to remotest corners, and prevailed beyond the limits of the weaker lights.

A.E. Housman

A.E. Housman PDF Author: A. Holden
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780333658031
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This is a collection of essays which shows that academic interest in Housman is still strong. There are contributions from the UK, the USA and Israel focusing on close readings, historical and bibliographical studies, and comparisons with other writers. Housman is seen as man and poet, classicist and inspiration for song-writers. Not since 1968, when Christopher Ricks edited the volume A.E. Housman: A Collection of Critical Essays , has there been such a wide-ranging assessment of the life and work of a great classical scholar and popular poet.