Penguin Classics: Housman: Collected Poems

A. E. Housman was one of the best-loved poets of his day, whose poems conjure up a potent and idyllic rural world imbued with a poignant sense of loss and sadness. They are expressed in simple rhythms, yet show a fine ear for the subtleties of metre and alliteration. Despite the simplicity of his verse, his scope is wide – ranging from religious doubt and doomed love to intense nostalgia for the countryside and patriotic celebration of soldiers marching to battle. This volume brings together the works Housman published in his lifetime, A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last Poems (1922), along with the posthumous selections More Poems and Additional Poems, and three translations of extracts from Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides that display his mastery of Classical literature.