A.E. Housman: Spoken and Unspoken Love

A Shropshire Lad by A.E. Housman is one of the best-loved books of poems in English, but even now its author remains a shadowy figure. He maintained an iron reserve about himself – and with good reason. His emotional life was dominated by an unhappy and unrequited love for an Oxford friend. His passion went into his writing, but he could barely hint at its cause. Spoken and Unspoken Love discusses all Housman’s poetry, especially the effect of an existence deprived of love, as seen in the posthumous work, where the story becomes clear in personal and deeply moving poems.

About the author:

Henry Maas is an editor and specialist in late nineteenth-century English art and literature, particularly the work of Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Ernest Dowson and A. E. Housman. He produced the first collected edition of Housman’s letters in 1971, and his Ernest Dowson: Poetry and Love in the 1890s was published by Greenwich Exchange in 2009. His interest in Housman derives equally from love of his poetry and admiration for the resolve with which Housman mastered the troubles of his early years to become the foremost classical scholar as well as the best-known poet of his time.

61  pages

ISBN: 978-1-906075-71-2