WHEN I WAS ONE - AND - TWENTY

Good evening everyone, my full name is Le Thi Hoai Hai. Now I will analyze the poem When I was one
- and - twenty of A.E. Housman.

Alfred Edward Housman, better known as A.E. Housman was a British author best known for his lyrical
poetry, which often conveyed his pessimistic views.

- Alfred Edward Housman was born in Fockbury, Worcestershire, England, on March 26, 1859, the
eldest of seven children.

- A year after his birth, Housman’s family moved to nearby Bromsgrove, where the poet grew up and
had his early education.

- In 1877, he attended St. John’s College, Oxford and received first class honours in classical
moderations.

Housman became distracted, however, when he fell in love with his heterosexual roommate Moses
Jackson. He unexpectedly failed his final exams, but managed to pass the final year and later took a
position as clerk in the Patent Office in London for ten years.

- In 1892, he was appointed professor of Latin at University College, London.

- In 1911 he became professor of Latin at Trinity College, Cambridge. As a classicist, Housman gained
renown for his editions of the Roman poets Juvenal, Lucan, and Manilius, as well as his meticulous and
intelligent commentaries and his disdain for the unscholarly.

-- Despite acclaim as a scholar and a poet in his lifetime, Housman lived as a recluse, rejecting honors
and avoiding the public eye. He died on April 30, 1936, in Cambridge.

Housman only published two volumes of poetry during his life: A Shropshire Lad (1896) and Last
Poems (1922). The majority of the poems in A Shropshire Lad, his cycle of 63 poems, were written after
the death of Adalbert Jackson, Housman’s friend and companion, in 1892. These poems focused on
themes of pastoral beauty, unrequited love, fleeting youth, grief, death and patriotism.

- A third volume, More Poems, was released posthumously in 1936 by his brother, Laurence, as was an
edition of Housman’s Complete Poems (1939).

When I Was One-and-Twenty, or Poem XIII, is the informal name of an untitled poem by A. E.
Housman, published in A Shropshire Lad in 1896. It is the thirteenth in a cycle of 63 poems. One of
Housman's most familiar poems, it is untitled but often anthologized under a title taken from its first line.

Now I will give you my analysis of this poem.

At the beginning of the poem, the poet uses word-play “when I was one and twenty” and “when I was
two and twenty” to make the poem lyrical and create the rhythm for the poem. Because when the poet
says “when I was twenty one”, there will be no rhyme to the following verses like “one” and “man”,
“one and twenty” with “crowns and guineas”.

The poet starts with the connection between a one year old boy and a twenty year old man. “When I was
one-and-twenty” seems to be an intentional comparison of the writer when he wants to compare
the typical characteristics between a one year old boy and a twenty year old man, which have
certain similarities. The age of one is a milestone of a person’s life. That’s the time we enter our
childhood and this is the time when a boy can walk, talk and learn how to be independent, how to
do certain kinds of things by himself. He imitates, copies and is curious about his surroundings. It
is the same with a twenty year old man, this is the time he enters the new world. They don’t know
about the outside world, they welcome all the new and strange things even if something worse is
going to happen to their life. They don’t focus much on the advice, they aren’t willing to listen to
any warning because to them, satisfying their curiosity is more important and gaining first
experience is more critical. In particular, the /w/ sounds in "when," "was," "one" and "wise" are
particularly light and playful. This alliteration perhaps suggests the youthful naivety of the speaker at the
time in question.

In line 3 and 4, “Crowns, pounds and guineas”, which are the symbols of English currency at that time.
The poet compares heart with money because they represent 2 different things: heart represents the
action of love, money represents materials, and money can buy almost everything. That’s why people
usually contain between money and love, about the financial power to the ability of love. This lesson is
still useful and available until today. This is the traditional lesson where the “wise man” wants to make
the young man understand that money is important, but how to love, how to take care of someone is
more important. This is one kind of old advice. The polysyndeton in line 3, with the repeated “and,”
emphasizes the wise man’s words, but also contributes to the poem’s overall playful sound.

The wise man compares the action of love to the action of giving away your most memorable things,
that’s money. And to a higher level, that is very expensive jewelry like “pearls and rubies”. “Fancy” is
your soul, your mind, and freedom. You must keep your mind and your soul free. You need to enjoy
your freedom, liberty. Don’t make your heart be gratified by any unnecessary things. The initial reaction
of a 21- year-old man is “But no use to talk to me”. he doesn’t focus much on the advice, and isn’t
willing to listen to any warning because to him, satisfying his curiosity is more important and gaining
first experience is more critical. It means we know for sure that he will not listen and it is suitable for
the development of this characteristic. That’s why “I heard a wise man say”, not “I listen”.
The second stanza begins with a repetition of the first line of the poem “When I was one-and-twenty”
(line 9), denoting that the second stanza will be a continuation of the ideas first presented in the first
stanza. The speaker tells us that he was warned by a wise man more than once. It is marked on the
sentence “ I heard him say again”. A child of two ages is too curious, he knows what will happen if
he touches strange things. Because he has already experienced it, he undertakes a certain
problem caused by his ignoring. After reading this poem, we got the feeling that when the man is
22, he understands what the wise man says. Because he recognizes that what the wise man says
was true with the explanation “And oh, ‘tis true, ‘tis true”.
On the one hand, Houseman uses the word “paid” in line 13, continuing the imagery of material objects
in contrast with love - nothing is harder to give away than one’s heart “The heart out of the bosom / Was
never given in vain / Tis paid with sighs a plenty / And sold for endless rue” (line 11-14).
Falling in love, on the other hand, does take one’s freedom, and therefore leaves a person in misery, or
“endless rue” (line 14). The final line of the poem Housman completes the speaker’s monologue with
the wise man’s warnings.

He could, but he did not follow the advice came from

whom he himself admit “a wise man”
-This poem was published in 1896, at a time when the Industrial Revolution was at its height in England. At the
time, young men would have been more familiar with commerce than making new generations. The growth of
cities might have affected Housman’s decision to compare love to buying and selling.
-Refer to his heart as a thing – something that can be ripped out of his chest and traded for other
things
-Continue the metaphor of trading his heart

-The impact that this has, perhaps, is to make us feel even more intensely that there is always an exchange in life, that one
can never get something for nothing. In this instance, the price for giving up “fancy” and the heart will be “endless rue,” or
sorrow

-This poem conveys the message that a person in love is not free, that one must avoid giving their heart to
another in order to keep their “fancy free.” Money, it tells us, makes no such claim on personal freedom.
Acquired wealth has nothing to do with freedom and therefore does not affect happiness.
-In popular culture, though, this loss of freedom is presented as a positive thing, a feeling that the person in love
welcomes; what this poem adds is a sense of just how miserable it is to lose one’s freedom in this way. The
poem never says whether its speaker is successful in love—that is, whether the person he has given his heart to
loves him back—which leaves readers to assume that any sort of love will be “paid”

Ironically, just one year older “And I am two-and-twenty” (line 15) and apparently now more
experienced, speaker suggests the intensity of the woe and sorrow felt, while begins his expression with
the word “Oh” (line 16) and repeats the phrase “’Tis true, ‘tis true” (line 16). The message of this poem
seems to be that the effect of surviving one’s (first) love is to be elevated into the ranks of wise people
who have already seen the light.
At the age of 21, he ignored the wise man’s advice because of some reasons. But when he’s 22, he admitted
“tis true”. It is not just only because he suffered, but he came to the age of being mature enough to see the
situation. This seems like more of an absolute truth than a response to just one bad relationship.

Youth need to learn on their own. Sometimes just hearing advice doesn't work. We all need to
experience it for ourselves to truly learn about love