SOURCE: Martin, Robert K. “A. E. Housman's Two Strategies: A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems.” Victorian Newsletter no. 66 (fall 1984): 14-17.

In the following essay, Martin observes that Housman employs two different strategies in his poetry for “responding to the situation of the homosexual through the means of his art”; he maintains that Housman expresses a “strategy of survival” in his earlier poetry, and a “strategy of revolt” in his later poetry.

This essay addresses itself to what I have called Housman's two “strategies”—two ways of responding to the situation of the homosexual through the means of his art. I identify one of these strategies with each of his volumes of poetry. The first, which I call the “strategy of survival,” is the strategy of A Shropshire Lad; the second, which I call the “strategy of revolt,” is the strategy of Last Poems. Although much Housman criticism treats...