Shropshire

A detailed Summary of Shropshire

Shropshire: A Place of Imagined Sexual Contentment

Published in 1869, A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad stands as one of the most socially acclaimed collections of English poetry from the Victorian age. This period in British history, however, proves, by judiciary focus (the Criminal Law Amendment of 1885), to be conflictive with Housman's own internal conflicts concerning the homoerotic tendencies which he discovered in his admiration of fellow Oxford student Moses Jackson. Housman, much unlike other English literary figures such as Oscar Wilde and Thomas hardy, was not an artist who found it necessary to directly confront Britain with any political dissention imposed by is works. Instead, "for Housman the discovery of self was so disturbing and disconcerting that poetry came as a way of disclosing it" (Bayley 44). The county of Shropshire is central to much of his poetry, but it is employed merely as "a personification of the writer's memories, dreams and affections;" meanwhile, Housman's central character is one "who could at once be himself and not himself" (Scott-Kilvert 26). In what Housman himself regarded to be one of his best poems, "XXVII: Is my team ploughing," the focus is placed upon a conversation between a dead

Hoagwood, Terrence Allen. A.E Housman Revisited. Twayne Publishers, N.Y. 1995.

Bayley, John. Housman's Poems. Clarendon's Press, Oxford. 1992.

Housman, A.E. A Shropshire Lad. Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. General Publishing Co., Ltd., Toronto. 1990.

man and one of his friends from his previous life (Housman 18). "XXII: The street sounds to the soldiers' tread;" meanwhile, expresses an emotional wonder discovered in the eyes of a passing soldier (Housman 15). Both the ambiguous quality of the dead man's last question (18 ll. 25-26) in poem XXVII and the nature of the chance encounter in XXII stand to exemplify the subtle undercurrent of Housman's own enigmatic sexuality.

In both the conversation with the dead man and the chance encounter with the soldier, who in context seems to be marching to war, Housman personifies Shropshire as a place in which he "is constantly reminded of the limitations of mortality" (Scott-Kilvert 27). The fact that Housman "knew that obtaining what one longed for was not in fact the point" can easily be witnessed in "The street sounds to the soldiers' tread" (Bayley 57). It seems that Housman believed that true love is everlasting and will not allow the lover's attention to be replaced - in his case from Moses Jackson. "Is my team ploughing" thus stands to represent his ultimate discontent with this personal truth. In context "poetry can give intense personal expression to individuality" and it seems that the persona established by the speaker in XXII is a hope that perhaps the poet will be able to stumble upon such fortune as to find the death of his emotions, or at least some fickleness therein. It must be said in conclusion if these works do in fact mirror the "thoughts at heart" within Housman, that his sexuality combined with h

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Approximate Word count = 1198
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English