When I Was One and Twenty Term Paper

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twenty by A.E. Housman (1859-1936). From a Shropshire Lad. 1896.

The title of poem "When I was one and twenty" by, A.E. Housman, immediately indicates to the reader that the author no longer is "one and twenty," because the first word of the poem "when," dates this age in the past rather than in the present. Also, although the poem ends with a reference to the poet being "twenty-two," and thus still hardly of an old age, the irony of one year giving the individual a sense of weight and experience in matters of the heart seems less than genuine, suggesting that Housman is actually much older than his twenties, and is viewing the entire decade of his twenties as one where sensations and emotions, rather than logic or experience rule his human, adolescent heart.


Also, by paring the poet with a wise man, versus the poet as a young youth who will not listen, the reader gains a sense that the poet is now much older, in comparison to the relatively callow age of twenty-one or twenty-two. But there is a sense that the speaker has learned some lessons of life over the course of the poem or the year between twenty-one and twenty-two. The relatively light-hearted tone of….....

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