"The exhilaration was produced by watching what seemed to be a mental machine of great power and precision applied to material at first sight unexpected... The severity of Housman's presentation was the severity not of passionlessness but of suppressed passion, passion for true poetry and passion for truthfulness. For Housman textual criticism was the exercise of moral self-discipline... The phrases remembered over the years flashed from the inner furnace of passion for truth and logical thought, and of indignation against every interest or influence which could corrupt it... Under the radiation of this display of a great critical mind in action, one's own powers, such as they might be, developed – above all, the spirit of bold but temperate self-reliance without which no criticism is possible."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Atheists from EnglandEssayists from EnglandPoets from EnglandUniversity of Cambridge facultyCritics from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Enoch Powell, 'A Personal Recollection of A. E. Housman', quoted in Richard Perceval Graves, A.E. Housman: The Scholar-Poet (1979), p. 249
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/A._E._Housman
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
A. E. Housman
Alfred Edward Housman (26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936), usually known as A.E. Housman, was an English poet and classical scholar, now best known for his cycle of poems '.
93 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by A. E. Housman →
Related Quotes
"But from my grave across my brow Plays no wind of healing now, And fire and ice within me fight Beneath the suffocati…"
"From far, from eve and morning And yon twelve-winded sky, The stuff of life to knit me Blew hither; here am I."
"Oh, when I was in love with you Then I was clean and brave, And miles around the wonder grew How well did I behave. A…"
"To-day, the road all runners come, Shoulder-high, we bring you home, And set you at your threshold down, Townsman of …"
"They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man, The lads that will die in their glory and never be old."
"There, like the wind through woods in riot, Through him the gale of life blew high; The tree of man was never quiet: …"
"The bells they sound on Bredon And still the steeples hum. "Come all to church, good people," — Oh, noisy bells, be d…"
"His folly has not fellow Beneath the blue of day That gives to man or woman His heart and soul away."
"And silence sounds no worse than cheers After earth has stopped the ears."
"Oh tarnish late on Wenlock Edge, Gold that I never see; Lie long, high snowdrifts in the hedge That will not shower o…"