“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.” (Dag Hammarskjold) Alfred Edward Housman was a great poet and scholar. Housman is best known for his poetry volumes, “A Shropshire Lad” 1896 and “Last Poems” 1922. As a scholar, he is well respected for his define editions of Marcus Manilius, a Roman astronomer. Housman is a great poet beginning with his life, his greatest success, and two of his poems that relate to life experiences.
Housman was born on March 26, 1859 in Fockbury Worcestershire, England. Housman is the eldest of seven children. A year after Housman was born, Housman’s family moved to Bromsgrove, where he started his childhood education. In 1877, he attended St. John College, Oxford where he received first class honors in classical moderation. Though his years of studying, Housman became stunned when he fell in love with his straight friend, Moses Jackson. (The Academy of American Poets)
Housman grades begin to fail and he barely passed his last year of college. After nearly passing the last year of college, Housman took a position as a clerk in the Patent Office for ten years. During his time in London, he studied Greek and Roman classics from beginning to end, Housman then became professor of Latin at The University College in London. (The Academy of American Poets)
Housman studies paid off when his poetry began to gain popularity. Housman published two volumes of poetry during his life: “A Shropshire Lad” and “Last Poems." In 1896, Housman published “A Shropshire Lad,” a book of sixty-three poems stating sadness and isolation. Larkin called him "the poet of unhappiness." Auden said he was adolescent. Orwell misunderstood him with the class war. His poetry were known...
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...poet, but Housman lived as a loner, rejecting honors and avoiding the public eye. Housman work became popular and popular each year. Housman is a great British Poet. (The Academy of American Poets)
Work Cited
The Academy of American Poets, Biography of A.E. Housman, Unknown Publisher, Unknown
Editor, http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID631
Famous Poets and Poems, Biography of A.E. Housman, Unknown Publisher, Unknown Editor, http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/a__e__housman/biography Housman, A.E., The Language of Literature, “When I was One and Twenty”, Applebee N.,
Author, et al., A Houghton Mifflin Company, Evanston, Illinois 1996 Pg.964
Housman, A.E., The Language of Literature, “To An Athlete Dying Young”, Applebee N.,
Author, et al., A Houghton Mifflin Company, Evanston, Illinois 1996 Pg.965
Shaw, Robin, “Housman’s Places”, The Housman Society, 1995
The speakers in A. E. Housman poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” and Edward Arlington Robinson poem “Richard Cory” serve different purposes but uses irony and rhyme to help convey their message. In “To an Athlete Dying Young” the speaker’s purpose is to show the audience dying young with glory is more memorable than dying old with glory. In “Richard Cory” the speaker’s purpose is to show the audience “you can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Each done in a somewhat similar way. Each boy is being told or has been told of what their twenty first birthday will/would bring. Johnson’s poem tells the boy to be carefree and wild throughout his life. While Housman’s tells the boy to be cautious and know what to keep and what to give. Each poem offers a different tone to coney each of these messages. “To Sir John Lade..” has a hint of irony and joyful, playful quality of sound. Whereas “When I Was Twenty and One” has a feeling of resentfulness and sadness for not taking the advice of the man.
Housman tells the athlete to take his fame to his grave with him so he can now always be remembered for his great performance and no one else could top him. “There is no clear definition of time or space in the poem. It could take place at any time in ancient or recent history and in any country, and therefore, the theme is universal” (Overview: “To an Athlete Dying Young”). Some critics think that this is the only time in his life that he was congratulated for a positive accomplishment, but we’re not sure how old this athlete is or where/when this poem occurs. Then all of a sudden those accomplishments go away and mean nothing anymore because now the athlete has died young, but that is not the
Lee De Forest was born Aug. 26, 1873, Council Bluffs, Iowa. De Forest was the son of a Congregational minister. His father moved the family to Alabama and there assumed the presidency of the nearly bankrupt Talladega College for Negroes. Excluded by citizens of the white community who resented his father's efforts to educate blacks, Lee and his brother and sister made friends from among the black children of the town and spent a happy although sternly disciplined childhood in this rural community. (Kraeuter, 74). As a child he was fascinated with machinery and was often excited when hearing of the many technological advances during the late 19th century. He began tinkering and inventing things even in high school, often trying to build things that he could sell for money. By the age of 13 he was an enthusiastic inventor of mechanical gadgets such as a miniature blast furnace and locomotive, and a working silverplating apparatus. (A Science Odyssey: People and Discoveries).
“Roethke was a great poet, the successor to Frost and Stevens in modern American poetry, and it is the measure of his greatness that his work repays detailed examination” (Parini 1). Theodore Roethke was a romantic who wrote in a variety of styles throughout his long successful career. However, it was not the form of his verse that was important, but the message being delivered and the overall theme of the work. Roethke was a deep thinker and often pondered about and reflected on his life. This introspection was the topic of much of his poetry. His analysis of his self and his emotional experiences are often expressed in his verse. According to Ralph J. Mills Jr., “this self interest was the primary matter of artistic exploration and knowledge, an interest which endows the poems with a sense of personal urgency, even necessity” (Contemporary Authors 476).
Dickman’s poems are confessional and narrative enough to be entries in his diary. Dickman writes all of his poems like an autobiography; telling a story from his point of view incorporating his thoughts and ideas. He expresses what he believes and what he likes, while telling a descriptive story that, often, has a digression from his
transfers, his reasoning is unknown. At each school, Jeffers was seen by his peers as
Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri on February 1, 1902. He was born into a black family of abolitionists and his parents were both bookkeepers. When Hughes was young his parents separated, causing his father to move to Mexico and his mother to leave him for quite a while in search of a steady job. Hughes could never call a place ?home? for too long because he was always moving from one place to another or living with different family members and friends. This constant movement affected his writing because he learned about many different people and life styles from the places he lived.
Robert Burns (often called Robbie or Rabbie in Scotland) was “born on January 25, 1759 in Alloway, Ayrshire he was the oldest son of seven children” (The Calgary Burns Club) In order to make a living the Burns family had to become farmers in order to bring in a larger salary to keep afloat. Back in that day and time the whole family had to work together to bring in wages. Robert Burns was the oldest of the family and so he had to work by his father’s side. Most of his poems were about the natural world, and was influenced heavily by the outdoor work. Henry Mackenzie described Burns as a “Heaven-taught ploughman.” (BBC News) But we must not forget that he was a working farmer for most of his life and he acquired his book learning through sheer determination in the midst of arduous physical toil.” (The Influences of Robert Burns) The Burns family struggled financially, however Robert Burns sill obtained an education in a time when not everyone was able to go to school and many common people could not even read or write. He joined John Murdoch grammar school at the age of six, and through his ...
In order for a person to really understand how Mr. Hughes’s life shaped his poetry, one must know all about his background. In this paper, I will write a short biography of Hughes’s life and tell how this helped accent his literary genius.
“Victorian poets illustrated the changeable nature of attitudes and values within their world and explored the experiences of humanity through these shifts.”
crippled with one of his hands, and is basically worth nothing, when at one time Johnny was wanted by a lot of masters because he was very
Setting Boston Massachusetts around 1773 to 1775. Revolutionary War era. & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbs & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; Johnny Lyte Tremain The young boy, who’s mother died when he was young, apprenticed to a silversmith named Mr. Lapham. The main character in the book. & nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;& nbsp;Mr. Lapham A silversmith that Johnny is apprenticing.
The molten silver was bubbling in the cracked crucible. It started to spill all over its sides leaking down onto the floor. At first he felt nothing, then a great sudden pang. The pain was excruciating. His body collapsed on the floor with his hand following behind.
pleasant than being confined in a prison." While attending Hodder House, he studied chemistry, poetry, geometry,