A powerful Easter poem by one of the most famous atheist poets The poet A. E. Housman (1859-1936) published just two volumes of poems in his lifetime: A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922). Yet he remains one of the most widely-read poets of his era, on the strength […]
A classic poem of parting A. E. Housman (1859-1936) remains a popular poet with many readers not least because he so poignantly captures the feelings of heartbreak and hopeless love in his work. Technically, his poetry was not innovative: he once named the old ballads and the songs from Shakespeare’s […]
On Housman’s great ‘remorseful day’ poem The poet and classical scholar A. E. Housman (1859-1936) is best-known for his 1896 volume A Shropshire Lad, one of only two volumes of poetry he published during his lifetime. But Housman wrote a number of other wonderful poems which he decided not to […]
Housman’s poem about fleeting happiness Happiness doesn’t tend to stick around for long. As Dianna Wynne Jones put it, ‘Happiness isn’t a thing. You can’t go out and get it like a cup of tea. It’s the way you feel about things.’ But as Robert Frost observed, happiness makes up […]
A short analysis of a classic autumnal poem by A. E. Housman (1859-1936) Much of A. E. Housman’s poetry requires no analysis or criticism; its meaning is plain enough to the reader. But the following poem, poem VIII from the posthumously published More Poems (1936) – sometimes known by its first […]