The Poetry of A.E. Housman

A.E. [Alfred Edward] Housman (1859-1936) was Professor of Latin at Cambridge University. He was an outstanding scholar and his work on classical texts is still valued. He was also one of the most revered and popular poets of the turn of the nineteenth century. His is most noted for his poetry sequence A Shropshire Lad (1896), though his work also had his critics. Many of his themes were pessimistic. However, his preoccupation with the sadness of early death caught the mood of the times, particularly as casualty lists grew during the First World War.
At this meeting we will be reading ten of his (often quite short) poems:
‘Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries’, ‘He would not stay for me, and who can wonder’, ‘Is My Team Ploughing’, ‘From Clee to heaven the beacon burns’, ‘When I watch the living meet’, ‘Loveliest of trees, the cherry now’, ‘On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble’, ‘To an Athlete Dying Young’, ‘To my Comrade, Moses J. Jackson, Scoffer at this Scholarship’, ‘When I Was One-and-Twenty’.
All are welcome. Feel free to take part by joining in discussion or simply by listening to the proceedings. The texts of the poems can be found at the Poetry Foundation:
**https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/a-e-housman**