It must be mentioned that, "Housman was a person for whom poetry, instead of being a complement to, was a substitute for music."3 Housman, despite his disinterest in music and song, granted permission to composers to set his poetry on the condition they could not print his poetry
1. John Sparrow. "Poet," in Alfred Edward Housman (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1937) 75.
2. B. J. Leggett. Housman's Land of Lost Content: A Critical Study of a Shropshire
Lad (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1970); This is the theme that Leggett presents as the main message of the entirety of Housman's A Shropshire Lad.
3. Trevor Hold. "'Flowers to Fair': A Shropshire Lad's Legacy of Song," in A. E.
Housman: a Reassessment, ed. Alan Holden and J. Roy Birch (London: …show more content…
"Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now," is a setting of Housman's full text in an unmodified strophic form. The text, portrays a beautiful picture of nature with deeper allusions to, "a movement from innocence to knowledge."7 B. J. Legget details in their book Housman's Land of Lost Content, the idea that the order in which the text presents the seasonal images represents the passing of ones life and the shift of perspective as life goes on. In the beginning of the poem, the tree is the loveliest thing and then later in the poem one looks upon the tree covered in snow to recall what it once looked like in bloom. Somervell captures the simplicity and the cyclic nature of birth, growth, and death through his use of the strophic form and a returning melodic interlude.
It is the simplicity of the music that allows the text to become the focal point of this work. While
6. Trevor Hold. "'Flowers to Fair': A Shropshire Lad's Legacy of Song," in A. E.
Housman: a Reassessment, ed. Alan Holden and J. Roy Birch (London: Macmillan Press
Ltd, 2000) 114.
7. B. J. Leggett. Housman's Land of Lost Content: A Critical Study of a
1. John Sparrow. "Poet," in Alfred Edward Housman (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1937) 75.
2. B. J. Leggett. Housman's Land of Lost Content: A Critical Study of a Shropshire
Lad (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1970); This is the theme that Leggett presents as the main message of the entirety of Housman's A Shropshire Lad.
3. Trevor Hold. "'Flowers to Fair': A Shropshire Lad's Legacy of Song," in A. E.
Housman: a Reassessment, ed. Alan Holden and J. Roy Birch (London: …show more content…
"Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now," is a setting of Housman's full text in an unmodified strophic form. The text, portrays a beautiful picture of nature with deeper allusions to, "a movement from innocence to knowledge."7 B. J. Legget details in their book Housman's Land of Lost Content, the idea that the order in which the text presents the seasonal images represents the passing of ones life and the shift of perspective as life goes on. In the beginning of the poem, the tree is the loveliest thing and then later in the poem one looks upon the tree covered in snow to recall what it once looked like in bloom. Somervell captures the simplicity and the cyclic nature of birth, growth, and death through his use of the strophic form and a returning melodic interlude.
It is the simplicity of the music that allows the text to become the focal point of this work. While
6. Trevor Hold. "'Flowers to Fair': A Shropshire Lad's Legacy of Song," in A. E.
Housman: a Reassessment, ed. Alan Holden and J. Roy Birch (London: Macmillan Press
Ltd, 2000) 114.
7. B. J. Leggett. Housman's Land of Lost Content: A Critical Study of a