Book Description
This is the first complete edition of A.E. Housman's poetry, unprecedented in the context to which it reveals the shaping processes of his poetic thought. To the poetry of The Collective Poems (1939) it adds a substantial body of light verses the juvenilia, some of it printed or collected for the first time. It also revises the texts--particularly the posthumously published poems and notebook fragments--in light of a comprehensive survey of manuscript and printed sources, recording all textual variants. As well as charting his compositional practices, the editor illuminates the many sources, from Biblical and Classical to contemporary, which influenced Housman--consciously or unconsciously--in his choice of ideas, images, and phraseology. Drawing on the poet's two commonplace books, works he is known to have read, and volumes from his library, the editor's commentary traces the remarkable range of his echoes and allusions, which have never before been explored in such detail. The introduction and commentary also cover dating and other textual matters, information on persons, places, and historical context, and Housman's linguistic usage.