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A Shropshire Lad

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A Shropshire Lad

By: A. E. Housman
Narrated by: Samuel West
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About this listen

Naxos AudioBooks continues its popular The Great Poets series with A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman. Published at the author’s own expense in 1896, after rejection from publishers, the collection contains a cycle of 63 poems. Despite exploring themes of lost love, obsession, pessimism, and death, the poems touched English readers and the book became a best seller during the Second Boer War and World War I. The collection, set in a half-imagined pastoral Shropshire, includes the well-known poems "When I Was One-and-Twenty", "To an Athlete Dying Young", and "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now".

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

Public Domain (P)2011 Naxos AudioBooks Ancient, Classical & Medieval Literature Poetry Classics England

Editorial reviews

Housman is a high-water mark of British lyric poetry, and this fine production captures perfectly his strong, melodic beat and decisive rhyme, and his wonderful way with words. Samuel West’s cultivated Midlands accent may not be specifically Shropshire, but his voice and reading are true to Housman-who was not, after all, some rough Shropshire lad himself but an Oxford don. His “Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now” and “To an Athlete Dying Young” are beautifully rendered here. West, you feel, reads poetry as it should be read-confidently, with ease and conviction, as if all the world spoke in meter and rhyme.
All stars
Most relevant  
The narrator does justice to arguably one of the best collections of poetry ever produced.

Perfection

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The reading of this poem was somewhat subdued, possibly in tune with the ongoing theme of mortality. However, it would be interesting to hear it read with more animation.

The poem itself is interesting in the reading but not memorable through most of its length.

A somewhat dour meditation, well read

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