English Literature

Alfred Edward Housman is a significant British poet who worked his way up through diligent work and study habits resulting in his success. Despite his success and fame as a poet, a critical analysis of Housman will reveal not only his strengths as a writer but his flaws as well, which is the focus of this discussion and analysis of this paper.
Alfred Edward Housman was a native of Worcestershire, being born in a Bromsgrove hamlet known as Fockbury and was among the brood of seven, and the oldest of them, growing up under the care of a stepmother and his father who worked as a country solicitor. Although his two siblings also pursued writing, it was Housman, who became popularly known as AE Housman, who became the most popular and significant of the three Housman writers. Housmans capability for writing was a result of his educational background, studying in three different schools during his lifetime, starting with King Edwards School which was located at Birmingham, and then later followed by his education at the Bromsgrove School, and lastly at St Johns College in Oxford, an educational stint he managed to land because of a scholarship. Housman worked as a clerk, and later, as a professor of Latin, largely because of his expertise on the subject which was a result of his diligent work and studies. Housmans popularity began with the release of A Shropshire Lad which contained sixty three poems. It was, at first, self published until there were many demands for reprints of the collection owed largely to the growing appreciation for the poems found in the collection which helped solidify Housmans significance as a writer and poet. This was followed by another collection, entitled Last Poems, which proved true to its title because Housman would not produce another collection until he died in April 30, 1936. As a poet that became significant during his life, Housman became the center and focus of books that talk about his poetry and poems and about his life and the many different paradoxes found in it.1 In many different instances in the modern post-Housman era, Housmans works and his style and approach towards poetry and poetry making was often placed vis-a-vis other poets and is used as something akin to which other poems are assessed, analysed and understood, in comparison to, like the case of the comparison of Housman to that of Wordsworth, for example . 
Despite his stature as a poet and a man who is relevant in the field of literary arts, Housman was not able to escape criticisms targeted at his works and at the focus of his works. In the effort to be able to understand Housman and in the review of his life and works, it is important to also discuss these areas because it is important that the researcher examines Housman critically based on not only on how he was praised by individuals but also in consideration to how he was criticized by other professionals in the field of literature. As a man involved in literature and the written works, Housman is considered by many as a person who is not just simply a poet, but is also a person who, during his time, specializes in criticizing older works. But this particular aspect of criticism itself drew criticisms from individuals who came after Housman. Because of this, an important aspect of Housmans background involves the issue of being criticized for his work on literary criticism. This presents an aspect of Housman that is different from the generally accepted, understood and appreciated fact of life of Housman. While he is often heralded as a very popular, significant and important poet in the history of the US, he is a person who was never able to escape criticism himself, and ironically, it was his work of criticism that became a key point in which people saw and appreciated his abilities with critical analysis, putting analysts in two polar sides of the issue. On one side there are those who believed in the significance of his work as a literary critic, while on the other side there are those who believed that Housman being a literary critic was something that does not have a very valuable contribution to how Housman was able to shape his own background as a significant individual in the field of literature since this particular work of his is not actually as significant. This is because the concept of the task of literary criticism and textual criticism is a redundancy of facts, people involving themselves in the understanding and breaking down of things that were already created, thus, hardly presenting anything new to the world to use, as an original work of ones own hand. It was in this particular aspect that Housman was vulnerable to being criticized by those who came after him and studied his works and his life as a man of literature. For Housman, knowledge itself meant at most the discovery of things that were already there.Because of his works like A Shropshire Lad, Housman was attributed as a poet who displayed a new style in poetry writing and was assessed as an individual who was significant in the introduction of a new style of poetry that has captured the hearts and minds of both the consumers of the literary poetry and the critics of the time who often have nothing but good words for the fast rising poet Housman. And why not As what critics explained, Housman was the embodiment of what the modern day would consider as a pop star. He was the one responsible for bringing forward and introducing to the people something that was new. In fact, the release of A Shropshire Lad was a phenomenon that was considered by many as an event that released what was known as the new literary fare. But the truth is this - the appreciation for the poetry of Housman during his time was a result partly of the ignorance of most of the people about the history and flavor of past poetry. Had they only known intensively and extensively the poetry of many cultures older than Housman, they would have known that Housmans approach in poetry writing is not 100 per cent his own creation, discovery and style. Housman was exposed as a poet who, no doubt, created and penned the words contained in his poetry but was using a style that was not totally his own original artistic style, on the other, hand something borrowed from older times. It can be categorically argued that Housman should not be credited as a poet who introduced a new form of poetry as how he is often hailed and heralded simply because his style was something that was strongly influenced by classic poetry. It was not new because it was already presented in the past and Housman, in his effort to have this old style influence his style, merely assisted in the revival of this particular poetry style. It was good to know that not every one was simply jumping the bandwagon and praising Housman for his innovative role as a ground breaking poet and instead expose the truth, like how his style was merely a borrowed approach previously used. Reviewers were quick to point out that a new poetic voice sounded here, although part of that newness consisted of Housmans descent from earlier British as well as Greek and Latin classical poets.
But despite how Housman was negatively appreciated as a writer, there is no doubt that the strongest point in Housmans career as a writer is how his works impacted the people. One of the ways on how an artist is being measured in hindsight and in perspective is how his work has impacted the people. This is the strong point of Housmans career as a poet. His poetry was considered as something that possesses certain strength, strength that is found in its role and how it affects and impacts the reader or audience. There are critics who believe that Housmans poetry possess a certain unique characteristic that is not found in every poet and is detected only in a select group of individuals. For example, it is believed that Housmans poetry acts as a form of emotional assistance in how the people can be able to handle more effectively the emotional rigors of the real world, an analysis hinged not merely in aesthetic literary analysis but more importantly on psychoanalytic analysis of Housman works which revealed the deeper aspect of Housman, his poetry-writing style, and his poems. Housmans poetry has mithridatic function, which requires that we experience a controlled amount of pain as a defence against the much greater pain inherent in the nature of the world outside the poem.
Others who were not able to enjoy and appreciate the poetry, on the other hand, may simply explain that particular approach as a result of detecting the peculiar quality of Housmans poetry (Sisson 42) which is a result of Housmans risk-taking, trying to break away from the traditional poetry writing style in the hope of being considered as a new artistpoet but risking having some people not approve his work that risks being considered as peculiar because of such deviation.