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Housman was born in Fockbury, Worcestershire, the eldest of seven children of a country solicitor. His brother Laurence Housman and sister Clemence Housman also became writers.
Housman was educated first in King Edward's School, then in Bromsgrove School where he acquired a strong academic grounding and won prizes for his poetry. In 1877 he won an open scholarship to St John's College, Oxford, where he studied classics. He was a brilliant student, gaining first class honours in classical moderations, but a withdrawn person whose only friends were his roommates Moses Jackson and A. W. Pollard . Housman fell in love with the handsome, athletic Jackson who, being heterosexual, rejected him, though the two remained best friends. This experience, reflected in some of his poems, may be an explanation of Housman's unexpected failure in his final exams (the "Greats") in 1881. Housman took this failure very seriously but managed to take a pass degree the next year, after a brief period of teaching in Bromsgrove School.
After graduating, Jackson got a job as a clerk in the Patent Office in London and arranged a job there for Housman as well. They shared an apartment with Jackson's brother Adalbert until 1885 when Housman moved in to lodgings of his own. Moses Jackson married and moved to India in 1887 and Adalbert Jackson died in 1892, leaving Housman a profoundly lonely man. He continued pursuing classical studies on his own and published scholarly articles on such authors as Horace, PropertiusSextus Aurelius Propertius was a Latin elegiac poet born between 57 BC and 46 BC in or near Mevania, who died in around 12 BC. Like Virgil and Ovid, Propertius was also a member of the poetic circle that collected around Maecenas. He became the close pers, OvidFor other uses, see Ovid (disambiguation Publius Ovidius Naso ( March 20, 43 BC AD 17) Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations. Ovid wrote in elegiac couplets, with, AeschylusThis article is about the ancient Greek playwright. For other uses, see Aeschylus (disambiguation Aeschylus ( 525— 456 BC; Greek: iota;υ&omicron was a playwright of ancient Greece. Born in Eleusis, a district of the Athenian state, he wrote his fi, EuripidesEuripides (c. 480 BC 406 BC) was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles; he was the youngest of the three and was born c. His mother's name was Cleito, and his father's either Mnesarchus or Mnesarchides. and SophoclesSophocles ( 4961— 406 BC; Greek: Sigma;οφοκλη&sigmaf was an ancient Greek playwright, dramatist, priest, and politician of Athens. He is known as the second of the three great Greek tragedians; Sophocles was 30 years y. He gradually acquired such a high reputation that in 1892 he was offered the professorship of Latin in University College LondonUniversity College London commonly known as UCL is one of the colleges that make up the University of London. It is a member of the Russell Group of Universities and the third oldest higher education institution in England. The main part of the college is, which he accepted.
Although Housman's sphere of responsibilities as professor included both LatinAlternative meanings: See Latin (disambiguation Latin was the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. It gained great importance as the formal language of the Roman Empire. All Romance languages are descended from Latin, and ma and GreekThe Greek language ( /Elini'k{/) is an Indo-European language which has existed from around the 14th century BC in the Cretan inscriptions called Linear B. Mycenaean Greek of this period is distinguished from later Classical or Ancient Greek of the 8th ce, he put most of his energy in the study of Latin classics. His reputation in this field grew steadily, and in 1911 he took the Kennedy Professorship of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he remained for the rest of his life. In 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 afraid of his scathing critical attacks on those whom he found guilty of unscholarly sloppiness. To his students he appeared as a severe, reticent, remote authority. The only pleasures he allowed himself in his spare time were those of gastronomy which he also practised on frequent visits to France and Italy.
Housman always 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 on The Name and Nature of Poetry in which he argued that poetry should appeal to emotions rather than intellect. He died two years later in Cambridge. His ashes are buried near St Laurence's Church, Ludlow, Shropshire.