A. E. Housman: Poems Literary Elements

The narrator is a third-person individual who is set away from the actions of the poems. They are omniscient and allow access to the thoughts, actions, and motives of every character.

Ballad, Iambic Tetrameter

One metaphor can be found in the poem 'A Shropshire Lad' where the poet writes "The dales are light between." He is describing the dales on the hills as extremely bright and comparing them to light to demonstrate this. A simile can be found in 'Hell Gate' when A.E. Housman compares the walking of Death and Sin to the idea of time.

One alliteration can be found amidst the vivid description of 'Hell Gate' where the author writes "And across the gate of gloom." Gate of gloom is an important literary device that adds to the rhetoric of the poem. Assonance is, by definition, the repetition of a sound in two words that are close enough to form an echo of sorts. This is seen in 'A Shropshire Lad' in the sentence "Look left, look right, the hills are bright." Right and bright are the two words that form this assonance.

Ironically, despite being homosexual and admitting to it in an era where this sexuality was neither permissible nor tolerated, A. E. Housman managed to publish his work. He was able to do this and be successful simultaneously, despite the fact that his poems focused on the issue of homosexuality as well, multiple times through the course of his writings.

Fantasy, Allegory, Personal

Shropshire, English Towns, Hell

Melancholy, Exuberant, Satirical, Vehement, Furious

In 'A Shropshire Lad,' the protagonists are the individuals from that town. They left their humble livings to go fight for their country and fight for their queen. Although the antagonist is not explicitly mentioned, it can be presumed to be the war and the enemies these men are fighting.

The major conflict is that the Queen and her country, presumed to be England, are at war with another country. They call up soldiers from various geographical locations throughout the nation, including the humble farming town of Shropshire. These men go off to fight for their country.

The climax of this poem is when we realize that the men of Shropshire who went out to fight for their Queen and country, have given up their lives in the process. We can see this explicitly mentioned in the poem where it says, "To fields that bred them brave, The saviours come not home tonight: Themselves they could not save. It dawns in Asia, tombstones show And Shropshire names are read."

There is foreshadowing of the climax in the poem 'A Shropshire Lad.' Readers can find out that the members of this town had died due to the line "About the soil they trod." By using the past tense, not only in this occasion but multiple other occasions, the author is foreshadowing the fact that they will no longer be able to perform these actions, due to the fact that they have been killed in battle.

The line "The saviours come not home tonight" is an understatement. Although this sentence could be depicted in numerous ways, including softer interpretations that suggest these men are merely in a different town for the night, it understates the fact that the people have been killed.

A. E. Housman has numerous allusions throughout his poems, all of which are religious allusions focusing on Christianity. The poem where we see this the most is 'Hell Gate.' Housman describes his own ordeals with homosexuality and how he struggles to define himself in a world and society that doesn't accept him nor his sexuality. He alludes to the older Christian ideas that homosexuality was a grave sin. We can see this in his trip to hell, where it is written, "But against our entering in From the drawbridge Death and Sin Rose to render key and sword To their father and their lord." Death and Sin, both large aspects of the Christian belief, await him due to the nature of his character. These are clear allusions to his religion.

An example of metonymy can be found in the poem 'A Shropshire Lad.' This can be found in the line "The dales are light between." Dales is the word used as a substitute or replacement of land, or maybe even hills. This allows the poet to add creativity to his syntax as he had already used the words hill in a preceding sentence.

Two personifications can be found in one line of 'Hell Gate.' The sentence is "Over us the darkness bowed, And the anger in the cloud." Human qualities are given to two non-human entities. First, when the darkness is described as bowing, and second, when the cloud is described as having the emotion of anger.

The sentence "And the Nile spills his overflow Beside the Severn's dead," is a hyperbole used to add significance to the men who died in the poem 'A Shropshire Lad.' Although the Nile River, situated thousands of miles away from England, clearly did not spill by their graves, it is a hyperbole to suggest the whole world is mourning these deaths.

A. E. Housman does not use onomatopoeia, at least not in the numerous texts outlined in his book of poems.