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• Housman's Compassionate Didactic
• E. E. Sheng (bio)

Man behind a mask." "A divided life." These subtitles of biographies of A. E. Housman attest to the surprise felt by many readers that the author of such popular and moving poetry should have been an acidulous philologist and former civil servant. Equally puzzling is the apparent discrepancy between the somber content of many of his poems and their consolatory effect. Clearly with such an intended effect, for instance, were these literally unhappy verses recently offered on a social media page, to "all those struggling with loss or having a hard time":¹

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain,The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.

How is it, as one critic wonders, that although "if you were to paraphrase [Housman's poems] or put them into French, they would seem consistently bleak," they nonetheless evince a "curious buoyancy, which proves a kind of resilience"?²

This essay begins by considering the question "why did Housman write poetry?"—both in the sense of what he wished his poetry to do ("why did Housman write poetry?") and in that of why he used poetry to do it ("why did Housman write poetry?"). These questions of purpose, which have not been addressed in detail by scholars of Housman, are particularly important in his case because some of the more lamentable misinterpretations of his poetry stem at least in part from mistaken suppositions about his purpose. Critics have variously labeled his poetry adolescent, self-centered, despairing, or even misanthropic. Housman's attitude, says A. F. Allison, is that "of the child whose party has been spoilt," and his poetry sometimes possesses "neither kindliness nor fortitude nor sanity of judgment"; it contains, says Randall Jarrell, "more than a suspicion of the child's when I'm dead, then they'll be sorry"; for R. P. Blackmur, he is "a desperately solemn purveyor of a single adolescent emotion"; and William R. Brashear speaks of his "unmitigated anguish" and claims that [End Page 451] "despair . . . is central to Housman's poetry."³ But these assessments all tend to assume that Housman wrote essentially to express his own feelings, an assumption that is in fact unwarranted; and once we no longer simply assign the emotions exhibited by Housman's speakers to Housman, it becomes possible to consider why he adopted certain attitudes and emotions rather than dismiss them as the product of some psychological defect.

Indeed, my examination of Housman's writings reveals an attitude the very opposite of adolescent or misanthropic, for they show that his motivation for writing poetry was primarily didactic and compassionate: to teach his audience certain unpalatable yet unavoidable facts about the human condition and, in teaching, to cause as little hurt and to make it as likely that these facts would be accepted as possible. I then suggest how this understanding of Housman's poetic purpose illuminates the criticism of his poetry, and in particular how it appeals and consoles despite its grim materialism; consider why Housman customarily adopted the persona of the rustic poet Terence; offer readings of a few poems from A Shropshire Lad; contextualize this understanding of Housman's poetics in a broader interpretation of his philosophy; and, in closing, situate his poetics in the didactic tradition.

Why Did Housman Write Poetry?

With one, polemical exception to which we shall return, Housman produced no extended statements on either poetry in general or his own poetry. We can do worse, then, than to start with the "Introductory Lecture" that he delivered at University College, London in 1892, on the purpose of scholarship. Housman devoted much more of his life to editing than to writing poetry, and what he says about scholarship may shed light on what he thought to be the worthy ends of human endeavor in general and have some application, a fortiori, to his poetry.

Indeed, there are striking similarities between the fruits of learning as set out in the "Introductory" and the materialist metaphysics that Housman's poetry assumes and conveys. Each "compels us to take leave of delusions which were pleasant while they lasted," but still cannot

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中文翻译：

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侯斯曼富有同情心的教学法

代替摘要，这里是内容的简要摘录：

• 侯斯曼富有同情心的教学法
• EE Sheng（生物）

戴面具的男人。”“生活分散。” AE霍斯曼传记的这些副标题证明，许多读者感到惊讶，这种流行而感人的诗歌的作者本来应该是一个讽刺的语言学家和前公务员。同样令人费解的是他的许多诗的沉闷内容与安慰效果之间显然存在差异。例如，显然具有这种预期效果的是，最近在社交媒体页面上提供了这些字面不悦的经文，以“向那些在迷失或挣扎中挣扎的人们提供帮助”。困难时间”：¹

那是迷失的土地，我看到它闪闪发亮，我走过的幸福的高速公路，再也无法来。

就像一个批评家想知道的那样，尽管“如果您要解释（霍斯曼的诗）或将它们放到法语中，它们似乎始终是黯淡的”，但它们仍在暗示着“好奇的浮力，证明了这种弹性”？^2个

本文首先考虑“为什么侯斯曼写诗？”这个问题-从他希望自己的诗做的意义上（“为什么侯斯曼写诗？”）以及为什么他用诗歌来做诗（ “侯斯曼为什么写诗侯斯曼的学者没有详细讨论这些目的问题，在他的案子中尤为重要，因为对他的诗歌的一些可悲的误解至少部分是由于对他的目的的错误假设造成的。 AF·艾里森（AF Allison）说，侯斯曼的态度是“对被党宠坏的孩子”，而他的诗有时不具有“对人的善意，毅力或理智”。判决”； Randall Jarrell说，“判决不仅包含我死后对孩子的怀疑，然后他们会后悔”；对于RP布莱克穆尔（Black Blackmur）来说，他“是一种绝妙的青春期情感传达者”；威廉R.布拉希尔（William R. Brashear）谈到了他的“坚定的痛苦”，并声称[结尾第451页] “绝望”。。。对于霍斯曼的诗歌来说，它是至关重要的。” ³但是这些评估都倾向于假设霍斯曼的写作本质上是在表达自己的感受，这一假设实际上是没有根据的；而且一旦我们不再简单地将霍斯曼的演讲者所表现出的情感分配给霍斯曼，可以考虑为什么他采取某些态度和情感，而不是将其视为心理缺陷的产物。

的确，我对侯斯曼著作的审视揭示了一种态度，它与青春期或厌世主义者的态度正好相反，因为它们表明，他写作诗歌的动机主要是说教性的和富有同情心的：向听众讲授关于人类状况的某些令人难以置信但不可避免的事实，以尽量减少伤害，并使这些事实尽可能地被接受。然后，我提出对侯斯曼诗歌目的的理解如何阐明他对诗歌的批评，尤其是尽管它严峻的唯物主义，但它如何吸引人和安慰人。考虑一下为什么侯斯曼习惯于采用乡村诗人特伦斯的性格；提供《什罗普郡小伙子》中几首诗的朗诵; 在对侯斯曼的诗学进行更广泛的诠释的背景下，将这种对背景的理解作为背景；最后，将他的诗学置于教学传统中。

侯斯曼为什么写诗？

除了一个极具争议的例外，我们将返回到该例外之后，侯斯曼对一般诗歌或他自己的诗歌均未发表任何扩展性声明。那么，我们做得比开始于他为获得奖学金而在1892年在伦敦大学学院上演的“入门演讲”更糟。豪斯曼毕生致力于编辑而不是诗歌创作，而他对学术的看法也许可以揭示出他认为这是人类普遍努力的目标，并且对他的诗歌也有一定的应用。

的确，在“入门”中阐述的学习成果与侯斯曼的诗歌所假定并传达的唯物主义形而上学之间有着惊人的相似之处。每个“都迫使我们抛弃了持续存在的令人愉悦的错觉”，但仍然不能

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