The Housman Society Journal . Volume Thirty-seven 2011 Editor: David Butterfield The Housman Society 80 New Road Bromsgrove Worcestershire B60 2LA England Charity Number 100107 ISSN 0305-926X Website: http://www.housman-society.co.uk E-mail: [email protected] The illustration on the cover is from the drawing of A.E. Housman by Francis Dodd, 1926 Reproduced by courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London 1 HSJ11Final.p65 1 11/21/2011, 12:18 AM The Housman Society Founders John Pugh and Joe Hunt President Sir Christopher Ricks, MA, B Litt., FBA Vice-Presidents Professor Archie Burnett, MA, DPhil. Colin Dexter, OBE, MA ` Nicholas Earle, MA Christopher Edwards, MA Professor Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV Paul Naiditch, MA, MLS Professor Norman Page, MA, PhD, FRSCan Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, OBE Gerald Symons Chairman Jim C. Page, MBE, MA 80 New Road, Bromsgrove B60 2LA Vice Chairman Robin Shaw, BSc Honorary Treasurer Max Hunt, MA, Dip. Ed. Membership Secretary Kate Shaw, BA (Econ) 78 Kidderminster Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B61 7LD Minuting Secretary Ann FitzGerald, BA (Hons) Editor of the Journal David Butterfield, MA, MPhil, PhD Queens’ College, Cambridge CB3 9ET Editor of the Newsletter Andrew J.M. Maund, MA, MPhil 57 Marlborough Avenue, Bromsgrove B60 2PH Committee Sonia French, BA Dip. Lib. Dip. Soc. Sci. Kate Linehan, MA Jennie McGregor-Smith Elizabeth Oakley, MA, LRAM, Dip. RSA Valerie Richardson 2 HSJ11Final.p65 2 11/21/2011, 12:18 AM Housman Society Journal Volume Thirty-Seven December 2011 Chairman’s Notes Jim Page 4 The Housman Lecture Ruth Padel 7 A.E. Housman’s Prose Contributions to Ye Rounde Table P.G. Naiditch 21 ‘Star-defeated sighs’: Classical cosmology and astronomy in the poetry of A. E. Housman John Cartwright 47 Muriel Herbert: ‘Loveliest of Trees’: a long-forgotten setting John France 77 The Will of the Reverend Robert Housman, 1837 Julian Hunt 82 The Book of Moses: Housman, Manilius and M.J. Jackson Neil Hopkinson 88 The Importance of Housman’s Lad George Haynes 110 The Women’s War Will Bring You Peace Lucy Cuthbertson 121 Jacksoniana David McKie 129 A French Antecedent of ‘Bredon Hill’? Gaston Hall 164 Worcester’s Roman Name, Buildwas, and Uricon Andrew Breeze 169 An Apocryphal Tale about A.E. Housman P.G. Naiditch 182 ‘The Welsh Marches’ (ASL XVIII) Geoffrey Plowden 184 Classical Verse Translations of the Poetry of Housman David Butterfield 185 Bromsgrove School Housman Verse Prize 2011 Alistair Aktas 189 The Menu for a Dinner of the Family 191 Book Reviews: Marcus Manilius: Astronomicon (5 vols): edited by A.E. Housman Colin Leach 192 Biographies of Contributors 195 The Housman Society and Journal 198 3 HSJ11Final.p65 3 11/21/2011, 12:18 AM Chairman’s Notes The Society has pleasure in enclosing with this volume our latest publication, Housman and Heine: A Neglected Relationship. It comes with our compliments and we trust that you will get much pleasure from browsing its pages. It has always been well known that Heine was one of the main influences on A.E. Housman’s poetry, but there has been surprisingly little written on this subject, so Jeremy Bourne’s book, which he has been working on for a long time, is doubly welcome. By placing a selection of Heine’s best-known poems alongside those of Housman which have a similar connection or theme, he proves the rationale of the book very clearly. The translations, specially created by our member Professor Gaston Hall, are remarkable in that they echo so well the metre, rhyme, and emotional content of Heine’s poems. The original German, the translation, and a selected Housman poem follow each other and the book is liberally illustrated by Robin Shaw’s evocative drawings. There are also chapters by Linda Hart, Professor Henry Woudhuysen and Jeremy Bourne himself which explain the historical background, and in particular the likelihood that Housman would have known and loved German verse from a very early age. The book contains a brief chronology for each poet, as well as a select bibliography and an index. Shortly after the last Journal had gone to print our prestigious event in Poets House in New York took place and it was good that a number of members from the other side of the Atlantic attended as well as committee members Robin and Kate Shaw who had done all the liaising to bring it about. Thanks of course go to them as well as Christopher Ricks and Archie Burnett who dazzled the audience with their respective talks. Last year’s Schools Poetry Reading Competition expanded to include Bromsgrove’s Middle schools (covering the ages of 8 to 13 in the Bromsgrove area) and, although entrants from only four schools materialised on the day, it was a start on which we hope to build this year. In the Sixth Form category the some readers reached an excellent standard and it was very good to be able to present the Housman Cup to the best overall winner. The cup (a replica of the wine cooler the students of UCL gave to A.E.H. in 1911), which was given by Raymond Grove’s family in his memory in 1999, has languished unawarded since the demise of the Society’s Poetry Competition some ten years ago but this year it has pride of place in North Bromsgrove High School’s Trophy case. Our Annual General Meetings are held in the Chairman’s House so tend to be friendly affairs but that does not stop some members asking testing 4 HSJ11Final.p65 4 11/21/2011, 12:18 AM questions of the Treasurer. However he is so on top of the accounts that nothing phases him and his achievement in completing the year’s accounts in time for them to be sent out before the AGM is impressive. Last year saw an increase in the Society’s net worth of £1,300, a sum which will be of value in helping pay for the ambitious future plans of the committee. The first big expense will be the Housman and Heine book which was always going to have a very limited sale; yet we felt that it was one that all members should have the opportunity of reading so are giving it as a Christmas present. Other expenses will include a subsidy for next October’s Society weekend, a reprint of Three Bromsgrove Poets and of course our sponsorship of the Hay Name and Nature of Poetry lecture. We also hope to sponsor an event at the exciting new Much Wenlock Poetry Festival, which, being in the heart of ‘Housman Country’, deserves our support. We have also just had the capital outlay of reprinting some of our greetings cards as well as producing two new ones. These I am glad to say are selling well and contribute significantly to the Society’s income. The Commemoration of Housman’s birthday in Bromsgrove has become quite an established local occasion and, with our new Member of Parliament being the guest of the day, there seemed to be more councillors present than usual. After retiring for a buffet lunch in the Council Chamber the event concluded with the winner of our Schools Poetry Reading Competition, Daniel Edwards from North Bromsgrove High School, reciting the two poems with which he won the competition in November. His Housman poem was Grenadier, Number V from Last Poems, was followed by Nothing by the “performance poet” John Cooper Clarke - who first became famous during the punk rock era of the late 1970s. The story has been well told in the Newsletter of the Marlborough Edition of A Shropshire Lad but it was very good to have the opportunity of hearing at the Ludlow Commemoration Paul Griffin’s account of how the edition of 2009 (limited to ten copies) came into being. We also heard his story of how he wrote as a 16 year-old to the 87 year-old Laurence Housman with a request to write a preface to the edition and received a reply which said that he was “sufficiently interested and pleased by your proposal to print a special edition of A Shropshire Lad with fine paper and binding, to earn a copy by writing at your request the enclosed preface”. It is hard to believe that our sponsored lecture at Hay on The Name and Nature of Poetry at the Hay Festival of Literature was the thirteenth in the series. 5 HSJ11Final.p65 5 11/21/2011, 12:18 AM Our 2011 lecturer was Ruth Padel, the latest in a long line of distinguished speakers, and her interpretation must have been one of the best, for throughout she used A.E.H.’s original lecture as a basis for her own, which made it especially relevant to the occasion. There was another excellent attendance and members will certainly enjoy reading it later in these pages. I do hope that the majority of members heard the Radio Four documentary about A.E. Housman which was broadcast on 1st September, for it seemed to me to be an exceptionally good one. Its origins were interesting in that in a previous programme the presenter was making he was so surprised to find the number of young poets who had all cited Housman as a primary influence, that he decided to make a programme solely devoted to the author of A Shropshire Lad. I am hoping to make a CD available for private circulation but have not yet reached agreement on how best to do this. For some while now we have been concerned in the committee about planning for succession, particularly as the member base in Bromsgrove is surprisingly weak and there is a shortage of obvious replacements for key officers and committee members (especially the Chairman!) in the Society when they reach an age when they feel they are no longer able to carry out their duties.