A Shropshire Lad Essay -- essays research papers fc

Shropshire A Place of Imagined Sexual ContentmentPublished in 1869, A.E. Hous domains A Shropshire Lad stands as one of the most socially acclaimed collections of English poesy from the Victorian age. This period in British history, however, proves, by judiciary counseling (the Criminal Law Amendment of 1885), to be conflictive with Housmans own internal conflicts c at a timerning the homoerotic tendencies which he discovered in his admiration of fellow Oxford student Moses Jackson. Housman, very more unlike other English literary figures such as Oscar Wilde and doubting Thomas hardy, was not an artist who found it necessary to directly confront Britain with every political dissention imposed by is works. Instead, "for Housman the discovery of self was so upset and disconcerting that verse came as a way of disclosing it" (Bayley 44). The county of Shropshire is central to much of his poetry, provided it is employed merely as "a personification of the authors memor ies, dreams and affections" meanwhile, Housmans 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, "twenty-seven Is my team ploughing," the focus is placed upon a conversation between a at rest(predicate) man and one of his friends from his previous life (Housman 18). "XXII The pathway 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 d.o.a. mans last question (18 ll. 25-26) in poem XXVII and the constitution of the chance encounter in XXII stand to exemplify the elusive undercurrent of Housmans own enigmatic sexuality."Is my team ploughing" is in the form of "the primitive ballad metres, which Housman revived," and primarily "employed for a poetry not of action but of introspection" (Scott-Kilvert 25). The piece b egins by the dead mans questioning of such trivialities as his "team" (l. 1) that he "used to drive" (l. 2), and "football" (l. 9) being played "Along the river prop" (l. 10). The other intercommunicateer responds to the dead mans questions with a partially abrasive tone as can be interpreted by lines 7-8 in which ... ...t 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 his philosophy of love cease in an intensely masochistic lifestyle. Such is reflected by the guilt that is simply associated by the speaker of "Is my team ploughing" deciding to take his dead friends sweetheart. In poem XXII the speaker relays the delight which he finds in the mutual emotions of love between he and the redcoat, but at the same time XXVII relays the frustrations ultimately found in being alone. To invest such emotional intensity only to wittingly find unrequited perspectives manifests itself as personified hope in both poems of which speak of experiences of intimate gratification and internal content.Works CitedBayley, John. Housmans Poems. Clarendons Press, Oxford. 1992.Hoagwood, Terrence Allen. A.E Housman Revisited. Twayne Publishers, N.Y. 1995.Housman, A.E. A Shropshire Lad. Ed. Stanley Appelbaum. General Publishing Co., Ltd., Toronto. 1990.Scott-Kilvert, Ian. A.E. Housman Writers and Their Work No. 69. Longmans, Green and Co., London. 1965.