Housman was a gay man whose conflicted relationship with his sexuality likely informed his poetry. In one of his letters, Housman described his work as motivated partially by his relationship with his college friend Moses Jackson. However, his poetry can also be seen as a “carefully constructed mask.” In his poems about English soldiers, he embraces a traditional form of masculinity that was hostile to men like him.
Housman was far from the only queer writer in the early nineteenth century. The best-known is probably Oscar Wilde, but others included Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. These men had varying relationships with their sexuality. In a world that was outwardly hostile to homosexuality, it makes sense that many queer people were closeted or married to women. However, many also had everything from affairs to long-term relationships with other men.
In his life in England, Housman was largely celibate. Although Housman sometimes referred to himself as a hedonist, or someone motivated only by pleasure, in reality he was something of a hermit and a stoic. That side of his personality also aligned with his cold academic personality. However, Housman also traveled extensively in France, where he habitually hired sex workers.
It’s thus hard to pin him down as either one thing or the other—neither repressed nor promiscuous, Housman navigated a homophobic world by carefully keeping his sexuality separate from his work. In this, he resembled many queer men in early twentieth-century England, especially following the trial of Oscar Wilde. Having seen the brutality of the English government, many artists began confining their sex and love lives to the continent.
It’s important not to see Housman’s queerness as the sole key to understanding his poetry. He was a complicated man with a variety of struggles, and his internal divisions extended far beyond his sexuality—think, for example, of his harsh academic persona in contrast with the sentimental rural voice of his poetry. Nevertheless, his often melancholy depictions of masculinity can be read through the lens of his homosexuality. The often-tragic poems are likely rooted in feelings he could not explore in other ways, including his marginalized sexuality.
