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    A Study Guide for A. E. Housman's "When I Was One and Twenty"
    A Study Guide for A. E. Housman's "When I Was One and Twenty"
    A Study Guide for A. E. Housman's "When I Was One and Twenty"
    Ebook31 pages20 minutes

    A Study Guide for A. E. Housman's "When I Was One and Twenty"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for A. E. Housman's "When I Was One and Twenty," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 19, 2016
    ISBN9781535842778
    A Study Guide for A. E. Housman's "When I Was One and Twenty"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for A. E. Housman's "When I Was One and Twenty" - Gale

      1

      When I Was One-and-Twenty

      A. E. Housman

      1896

      Introduction

      This poem, like nearly all of A. E. Housman’s most famous poems, was written when the poet was a young man, and was originally published in 1896 as part of Housman’s first book of poems, A Shropshire Lad. Its subject matter, contrasting the vivacity of youth with expressions of loss and sorrow, is a frequent theme of Housman’s. In the speaker’s narrative, or dramatic monologue, he tells of failing to heed the advice of an older man to guard his heart and consequently experiencing the pain of young lost love. When I Was One-and-Twenty may be seen as an example of the way in which Housman’s poetry frequently creates or describes a world that provokes no response beyond a painful endurance. However, it many also be seen as an example of how Housman’s poetry contains a lightness of verse and musicality that almost contradicts the expressed anguish.

      Author Biography

      Housman was born in 1859 in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England. The eldest of seven children in a family that would produce a famous dramatist (Housman’s younger brother, Laurence) and a novelist and short story writer (his sister Clemence), Housman attended Bromsgrove School, a notable institution that emphasized Greek and Latin studies. Though successful academically, Housman was a small and frail boy who did not easily form friendships. When he was twelve, Housman’s mother died, the first of a number of events which would affect him profoundly and erode his religious faith. (Years later he would write that he became a deist at thirteen and an atheist at twenty-one.) He also developed a pronounced facial tic that he never entirely

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