SOURCE: Leggett, B. J. Introduction to Housman's Land of Lost Content: A Critical Study of “A Shropshire Lad,” pp. 3-11. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1970.

In the following excerpt, Leggett provides an overview of the critical reception—or lack of critical attention—of Housman's poetry.

Any assessment of A. E. Housman's present stature as a poet must begin with the well-known but curious fact that his poetry, while it has become widely read and even highly regarded in some circles, has failed to give rise to a significant body of criticism. In an age of close reading and analysis, no systematic study of Housman's poetry has been attempted. The commentaries which have been produced are given, on the whole, to discussions of Housman's pessimism or to probings of the personality which seems to lie beneath the surface of his poems. The last decade has witnessed some fragmentary efforts...