阿尔弗雷德·爱德华·豪斯曼传记

诗人的传记

豪斯曼出生在伍斯特郡布罗姆斯格罗夫郊区的一个小村庄福克伯里，父亲是一名乡村律师，在七个孩子中排行老大。他的母亲在他12岁生日那天去世了，随后他的继母露西取代了她的位置，露西是他父亲的堂姐，他后来在1873年娶了她。他的哥哥劳伦斯·豪斯曼和妹妹克莱门斯·豪斯曼也成为了作家。豪斯曼首先在伯明翰的爱德华国王学校接受教育，然后在布罗姆斯格罗夫学校接受教育，在那里他获得了坚实的学术基础，并因诗歌获奖。1877年，他获得了牛津大学圣约翰学院的公开奖学金，在那里他学习古典文学。虽然豪斯曼生性内向，但他与两个室友摩西·杰克逊和a·w·波拉德建立了深厚的友谊。杰克逊成为豪斯曼一生的挚爱，尽管后者的感情没有得到回报，因为杰克逊是异性恋。豪斯曼在1879年获得了古典中庸学的一流学位，但他沉浸在文本分析中，特别是对普罗提乌斯的研究，导致他忽视了古代历史和哲学，这是伟大课程的一部分，因此他甚至没有获得及格学位。虽然有些人把豪斯曼期末考试的意外失败解释为杰克逊的拒绝，但大多数传记作者都提出了各种各样的原因，对哲学的冷漠，对自己超自然天赋的过度自信，对不精确的学习的蔑视，以及与杰克逊一起打发时间的享受，再加上他父亲病入非肓的消息，这些都是更直接、更密切的原因。这次失败使他深感屈辱，并决心证明自己的天才是正确的。 After Oxford, Jackson got a job as a clerk in the Patent Office in London and arranged a job there for Housman as well. They shared a flat with Jackson's brother Adalbert until 1885 when Housman moved in to lodgings of his own. Moses Jackson moved to India in 1887. When Jackson returned briefly to England in 1889 to marry, Housman not only was not invited to the wedding but knew nothing about it until the couple had left the country. Adalbert Jackson died in 1892. Housman continued pursuing classical studies independently and published scholarly articles on such authors as Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. He gradually acquired such a high reputation that in 1892 he was offered the professorship of Latin at UCL, which he accepted. Many years later, the UCL Academic Staff Common Room was dedicated to his memory as the Housman Room. Although Housman's sphere of responsibilities as professor included both Latin and Greek, he put most of his energy into the study of Latin classics. In 1911 he took the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his life. It was unusual at the time for an Oxford man such as Housman to be appointed to a post at Cambridge. During 1903–1930, he published his critical edition of Manilius's Astronomicon in five volumes. He also edited works of Juvenal (1905) and Lucan (1926). Many colleagues were unnerved by his scathing critical attacks on those whom he found guilty of shoddy scholarship[citation needed]. To his students he appeared as a severe, reticent, remote authority[citation needed]. However, quite contrary to his usual outward appearance, he allowed himself several hedonistic pleasures: he enjoyed gastronomy and flying in airplanes and frequently visited France, where he read "books which were banned in Britain as pornographic". A fellow don described him as being "descended from a long line of maiden aunts". Housman found his true vocation in classical studies and treated poetry as a secondary activity. He never spoke about his poetry in public until 1933 when he gave a lecture, The Name and Nature of Poetry, in which he argued that poetry should appeal to emotions rather than to the intellect. He died, aged 77, three years later in Cambridge. His ashes are buried near St Laurence's Church, Ludlow, Shropshire.