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Apr 3, 2017 · 1. ‘ Loveliest of trees, the cherry now ’. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more …. One of A. E. Housman’s most widely anthologised poems, this sees the speaker reflecting on the fact that, aged 20, he only has 50 of his threescore years and ...
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- Summary
- Structure
- Literary Devices
- Analysis, Stanza by Stanza
- Historical Context
- Similar Poetry
‘Because I Liked You Better,’ a poem by A. E. Housman describes how a speaker chose death to keep the promise he made to his beloved. At first, the speaker or the poetic personainforms the lady love that he liked more than any man can express in words. His devotion somehow irked the lady. So he promised to stay away from her and put a huge distance...
This poem consists of four stanzas. Each stanza contains four rhyming lines. There is a specific rhyme scheme in this piece and it follows the scheme of the ballad stanza. Housman uses the ABCB rhyme scheme throughout the poem. So, the second and fourth lines of each stanza rhymetogether. In each stanza, the syllable count is 7-6-7-6. The stress fa...
The most important literary device of this poem is enjambment. This device helps the poet to internally connect the lines. For example, the first two lines, “Because I liked you better/ Than suits a man to say.” In the last line of the first stanza, “To throw the thought away,” there is a repetition of the “t” sound in the neighboring words. It is ...
Stanza One
‘Because I Liked You Better’ begins with a sense of continuity. The relationship has ended. Still, in the speaker’s memory, it is fresh. He liked a lady better than a man can convey in words. Using this hyperbolicexpression, he reveals his dedication to the lady. But his devotion to the lady backfired. It made her angry, to be specific, annoyed. For this reason, he promises to throw such thoughts away from his mind. In this way, the first stanza shows the character of the lady as well as the...
Stanza Two
As he has said earlier, he had to stop loving that lady. To put a world between them, he parted with a “stiff and dry” heart. The words “stiff” and “dry” are used to make a comparisonbetween the speaker’s heart to an object. Apart from that, Housman uses the word, “world” to depict the distance between the earth and the realm of death. At the time of parting, the lady told him to forget her as early as he could. In reply, he told her there was nothing to fear. As he would keep that promise.
Stanza Three
In the third stanza of ‘Because I Liked You Better,’ the speaker presents an image of a grave. This grave belongs to none other than the speaker. If the lady comes across his grave accidentally, she can find the clover and whiten it. Clover is a kind of plant, with dense globular flowers and three-lobed leaves. It can be seen around his grave. When the lady passes by, no tall flower in the “trefoiled grass” raises its head to meet her. “Trefoiled grass” is a metaphorfor clover. The flowers wi...
‘Because I Liked You Better’ appears in A. E. Housman’s poetrycollection “More Poems,” is associated with his poem cycle, “A Shropshire Lad”. It is the 31st poem of the series. After he died in 1936, his brother Laurence over the next two years published his poem from his manuscripts. “More Poems” was published in 1936. Poems 30 and 31 of this coll...
Here is a list of a few poems that similarly speak on the themes present in A. E. Housman’s ‘Because I Liked You Better’. 1. My Life Closed Twice Before Its Closeby Emily Dickinson– It’s one of the best-known poems of Dickinson. This poem uses heartbreak as a metaphor for death and experiments with the meaning of “closure.” Read more Emily Dickinso...
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Mar 6, 2018 · A classic poem of parting A. E. Housman (1859-1936) remains a popular poet with many readers not least because he so poignantly captures the feelings of heartbreak and hopeless love in his work. Technically, his poetry was not innovative: he once named the old ballads and the songs from Shakespeare’s plays as among his chief…
When I Was One-and-Twenty. ‘When I Was One-and-Twenty’ by A. E. Housman is a relatable poem that explores how easy it is to make mistakes in one’s love life, even when one knows exactly what they should do. When I was one-and-twenty. I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas. But not your heart away;
Housman is said originally to have titled his book The Poems of Terence Hearsay, referring to a character there, but changed the title to A Shropshire Lad at the suggestion of a colleague in the British Museum. A friend of his remembered otherwise, however, and claimed that Housman's choice of title was always the latter. [1]
- A.E. Housman
- 1896
Alfred Edward Housman (/ ˈhaʊsmən /; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classical scholar and poet. After an initially poor performance while at university, he took employment as a clerk in London and established his academic reputation by first publishing as a private scholar. Later Housman was appointed Professor of Latin at ...
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In the second stanza of ‘ Farewell to Barn and Stack and Tree’ the speaker goes on. He informs the reader very quickly and emotionlessly that someone has died. A man named “Maurice” is amongst the hay. He “lies still”. If this isn’t bad enough, the speaker admits that his “knife is in his side”. Without a doubt, this is the ...
