Puneet Varma (Editor)

More Poems

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Last Poems, The name and nature of poetry, The selected poems of, A Shropshire Lad, The seven temptations

More poems from book inaugurations


More Poems is a collection of 49 poems by the English classical scholar and poet A. E. Housman (1859–1936). It was published on 26 October 1936 by his brother Laurence, in the year of the poet's death. The first impression was of 8,856 copies, followed immediately by a second impression of 5081; a later third corrected printing of 7,500 followed that. The American edition published that year had several textual differences to the British original.

Contents

In the preface, Laurence quoted the following instructions from the poet's will:

"I direct my brother, Laurence Housman, to destroy all my prose manuscripts in whatever language, and I permit him but do not enjoin him to select from my verse manuscript writing, and to publish, any poems which appear to him to be completed and to be not inferior to the average of my published poems; and I direct him to destroy all other poems and fragments of verse."

More Poems was published as a result. A further selection of poems was included in Collected Poems (1939) under the heading Additional Poems.

The poems

  • IV had been published anonymously in The Edwardian (April 1916). It had been intended for A Shropshire Lad, but was deleted in page proof.
  • V is based on the Roman poet Horace's Ode IV.7. It had been published in Quarto (Vol. 3, 1897). It is Housman's only published verse translation from the Latin. In The Times (5 May 1936), Mrs T. W. Pym recalled a lecture in 1914: 'He read the ode aloud with deep emotion, first in Latin and then in an English translation of his own. "That," he said hurriedly, almost like a man betraying a secret, "I regard as the most beautiful poem in ancient literature," and walked quickly out of the room.'
  • XVIII had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.
  • XXIII alludes to the Hades of Greek mythology: the river Lethe and the ferryman Charon
  • XXVI had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.
  • XXXIII had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.
  • XXXV alludes to the biblical story of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar of salt
  • XLII commemorates Housman's friend Adalbert Jackson.
  • XLV had been printed for Last Poems, but was removed.
  • XLVI had been intended for Last Poems, but was deleted at the proof stage.
  • XLVII was sung at Housman's funeral service.
  • XLVIII had been published in Waifs and Strays (March 1881), signed "A.E.H.". It was included in More Poems under the title ALTA QUIES and with textual variants. The original title and text were restored in Collected Poems (1939)

    • References

    More Poems Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA