A.E. HOUSMAN
A. E. Housman (1859-1936) was a British scholar and poet. The great pleasure of his work for me is the natural ease of the music in his lines and his control of sound. Here I present the full texts of A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems.
Housman also wrote More Poems (1936) and Additional Poems (1937), which his brother published under the direction
of Housman's will; copyright law won't allow these works into the public domain until about 2012 (else I would have provided them, too),
so you might check for them at the nearest university library.
SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY
Good friends, let's to the fields...
After a little walk, and by your pardon
I think I'll sleep. There is no sweeter thing
Nor fate more blessed than to sleep.
—from 'To-morrow is My Birthday,'
Toward the Gulf (1918)
So reads the epitaph of Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950). Although Masters published twelve plays, twenty-one books of poetry,
six novels and six biographies, he never surpassed the success of Spoon River Anthology (1915), a series of monologue-poems
delivered from the grave by the dead of Spoon River, Illinois. Many of the characters are based on Masters's childhood
acquaintances; see John E. Hallwas's excellent edition of the Anthology
for annotations detailing the connections between the poems and Masters's past.
Upon its publication in condensed form (the poems
were released serially between March and November of 1914, then collected in one volume in 1915), the Anthology received critical
acclaim for its full portrayal of small-town life and dramatic techniques.
