ABSTRACT
A.E.Housman’s most autobiographical poems. In 1892 A.E.Housman was appointed professor of Latin at London University, and in 1911 he became professor of Latin at Cambridge. He worked on his definitive edition of Manilius, published in five volumes between 1902 and 1930. Prior to that, in 1896 and at his own expense, he had published A Shropshire Lad, a collection of poetry that initially had little response but became very popular during the First World War. The collection is supposed to have been inspired by Housman’s anger at the Oscar WILDE trial of 1884-5, and Wilde’s conviction. He sent Wilde an autographed copy of A Shropshire Lad on his release from prison. Housman’s brother found a newspaper article about the suicide of a young homosexual Woolwich naval cadet in August 1885 among Housman’s papers, which suggested that this case too had contributed to Housman’s poetry from the period. Housman’s Last Poems (1922), too, proved to be a popular success. In 1936 his brother Laurence published More Poems posthumously; Additional Poems appeared one year later. Housman’s poems made coded references to homosexuality. Many of his poems focus on ‘lads’, ‘friends’, and other male figures. Some leave the gender of the beloved unspecified. However, especially in his later verse, Housman is increasingly frank in his depiction of homosexuality.
