Quotations

“We exercise textual criticism whenever we notice and correct a misprint.”

Reducing an intimidating scholarly discipline to a familiar act of correction · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“The literary faculty of classical scholars is poor, and sometimes worse.”

A characteristically unsparing judgement on his own profession · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“There is a sort of savage nobility about his firm reliance on his own bad taste.”

Admiring intellectual candour even while condemning the judgement it produces · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“Different men have different aptitudes, and this aptitude happens to be uncommon.”

Recognising genuine differences in people's capacity for literary judgement · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“Shakespeare, who at his best is the best of all poets, at his worst is almost the worst.”

A striking judgement on the extraordinary unevenness Housman perceived in Shakespeare · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“To tell the truth I do not much believe in these supposed effects of classical studies.”

Refusing to exaggerate the moral benefits of his own academic discipline · Introductory Lecture, University College London, 1892

A.E.Housman

“I could not say that I have a favourite among my poems.”

Resisting the invitation to rank his own poetic work · Letter to an admirer

A.E.Housman

“Three minutes' thought would suffice to find this out; but thought is irksome and three minutes is a long time.”

A famously sardonic complaint about unwillingness to think · Preface to Juvenal, Saturae

A.E.Housman

“Not to be a textual critic is no reproach to anyone, unless he pretends to be what he is not.”

Valuing intellectual honesty above pretensions to expertise · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“Because a man is not a born critic, he need not therefore act like a born fool.”

Arguing that disciplined thought can compensate for limited natural aptitude · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“It is no good for a rhinoceros to hunt for fleas: he does not know where they are, and could not catch them if he did.”

A comic image for the importance of sensitivity and aptitude · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“Every problem which presents itself to the textual critic must be regarded as possibly unique.”

Emphasising judgement and attention to individual circumstances · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“Of course you can have hard-and-fast rules if you like, but then you will have false rules, and they will lead you wrong.”

Warning against simple rules imposed upon complicated human problems · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“Whatever he reads about textual criticism in books, or hears at lectures, he should test by reason and common sense.”

Advocating independent judgement rather than passive acceptance of authority · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“It is purely a matter of reason and of common sense.”

Rejecting unnecessary mystification in scholarly practice · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“Textual criticism is a science, and, since it comprises recension and emendation, it is also an art.”

Balancing systematic scholarship with the need for individual judgement · Lecture, The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism, 1921

A.E.Housman

“Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out.”

Warning that analysis can sometimes diminish poetic experience · Lecture, The Name and Nature of Poetry, 1933

A.E.Housman

“Georgian Poetry, with my three excluded, contains, I think, the best poems of the century.”

Offers both generous praise of his contemporaries and a modest aside about himself · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“I burned many copybooks which contained fugitive pieces of my own because I thought it were better for them to die young and be happy than live to be reviled.”

A witty description of ruthless self-editing and dissatisfaction with early work · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“For a long time I did little but criticise and rearrange my books, separating, as it were, the sheep from the goats.”

Reading critically became part of his education as a writer · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“Shelley was innocent of such sins and poor Keats never heard of them.”

His criticism gives way to warm admiration for Shelley and Keats · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“Tennyson was too conventional for my taste and nearly always spoiled his work with a prologue or an epilogue full of loud bombast or conceit.”

A strikingly forthright judgement on one of the major Victorian poets · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“The poems of the former which had erstwhile pleased me seemed too full of colour, too full of metaphor and often too disconnected.”

Shows Ledwidge developing definite ideas about poetic restraint and coherence · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

“I began to pick faults with Longfellow and Tennyson.”

Marks the transition from youthful admiration to independent critical judgement · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

Francis Ledwidge

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Topic: Criticism