A. E. Housman (1859-1936) Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff, To an Athlete Dying Young, When I Was One-and-Twenty LINKS A Shropshire Lad (1896) http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/housman/ Part of the Bartleby Archive created and maintained at Columbia University, this site contains the text of A Shropshire Lad which was originally published in 1896. BIOGRAPHY A. E. Housman (1859–1936) Born in Fockbury, England, and an outstanding student, Alfred Edward Housman nonetheless failed his final examinations at Oxford in 1881 (possibly as a result of emotional chaos caused by his love for a male classmate). Working as a clerk in the Patent Office in London, he pursued classical studies on his own, earned an M.A., and was appointed to the Chair of Latin at University College, London. In 1910, he became professor of Latin at Cambridge, where he remained until his death in 1936. As a poet, Housman was concerned primarily with the fleetingness of love and the decay of youth. After his first collection, A Shropshire Lad, was rejected by several publishers, Housman published it at his own expense in 1896. It gained popularity during World War I, and his 1922 collection, Last Poems, was well received. In his lecture "The Name and Nature of Poetry" (1933), Housman argued that poetry should appeal to emotions rather than intellect. More Poems (1936) was published posthumously.