Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T10:21:41.643Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Housman's Dirty Postcards: Poetry, Modernism, and Masochism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Peter Howarth
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Housman's bitter poems about fate, betrayal, and unhappiness were dismissed by many modernist critics and poets on account of their author's pathological self-division, both in content and form. As Housman's thwarted homosexuality became more widely known, it seemed the obvious source of his relentless oppositions between desire and a fateful law. But his newly recovered collection of pornography and sexology shows as much interest in sadomasochistic fantasy scenarios as in homosexuality, scenarios in which sufferer and torturer are covertly agreeing to play the same game. This interest means not only that the poems protesting against punishment might be covertly identifying with it but also that they might covertly ironize the aesthetic criteria of Housman's modernist opponents. Auden's, Richards's, and Leavis's organicist ideas about poetry's cultural mission, based on Schiller's model of the aesthetic state, are parodied by the unmediated, self-contained, and homeostatic relationships found in the masochistic fantasies of Housman's collection.

Type
Cluster on Queer Modernism
Information
PMLA , Volume 124 , Issue 3 , May 2009 , pp. 764 - 781
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Abercrombie, Lascelles. “A. E. Housman on Poetry.” Gardner 234–35.Google Scholar
Margaret, Anson [pseud.]. The Merry Order of St. Bridget. York: n.p., 1857 (?). Print.Google Scholar
Armstrong, Charles I. Romantic Organicism: From Idealist Origins to Ambivalent Afterlife. London: Palgrave, 2003. Print.10.1057/9780230287754CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Auden, W. H. “A. E. Housman.” Mendelson 238.Google Scholar
Auden, W. H. “Jehovah Housman and Satan Housman.” Mendelson 361–63.Google Scholar
Auden, W. H. “Journal Entries, 1929.” Mendelson 297–300.Google Scholar
Auden, W. H.“Phantasy and Poetry.”, Reality in In Solitude, for Company: W. H. Auden after 1940. Ed. Bucknell, Katherine and Jenkins, Nicholas. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. 177–96. Print.Google Scholar
Auden, W. H. “A Worcestershire Lad.” Forewords and Afterwords. London: Faber, 1979. 325–32. Print.Google Scholar
B., L. Pédérastie passive ou mémoires d'un enculé. N.p.: n.p., n.d. [c. 1895]. Print.Google Scholar
Back, Georg. Sexuelle Verirrungen des Menschen und das Natur. 2 vols. Berlin: Pohl, 1905–10. Print.Google Scholar
Bayley, John. A. E. Housman. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Print.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117636.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bersani, Leo. The Freudian Body: Psychoanalysis and Art. New York: Columbia UP, 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Bland, Hubert. “A New Poet.” Gardner 58–61.Google Scholar
Blunden, Edmund. “Realities of Poetry.” Times Literary Supplement 1 June 1933: 369–70. Print.Google Scholar
Bozorth, Richard R. Auden's Games of Knowledge: Poetry and the Meanings of Homosexuality. New York: Columbia UP, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
Chevalier, J. L'inversion sexuelle: Une maladie de la personnalité. Lyon: Storck, 1893. Print.Google Scholar
Cleland, John. Memoirs of Fanny Hill. Paris: Liseux, 1911. Print.Google Scholar
Coleman, George. The Rodiad. London: Coleman and Murray (?), 1820 (?) [1898]. Print.Google Scholar
Cook, Matt. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty. Trans. Jean McNeil. New York: Zone, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Desaulle, G. Dubois. Les infames: Prêtres et moines non conformists en amour. Paris: Gay, 1861. Print.Google Scholar
Douglas, Alfred. Poems. Paris: Mercure de France, 1896. Print.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. Letter to Mary Lamberton Becker, 22 July 1946. Private collection.Google Scholar
Eliot, T. S. Rev. Gardner 254–57.Google Scholar
Empson, William. “Foundations of Despair.” 1937. Gardner 328–30.Google Scholar
Eulenberg, A. Sadismus und Masochismus. Wiesbaden: Bergman, 1902. Print. Trans. as Algolagnia: Sadism and Masochism. New York: New Era, 1934.Google Scholar
Favret, Mary A. “Flogging: The Anti-slavery Movement Writes Pornography.” Essays and Studies 1998: Romanticism and Gender. Ed. Janowitz, Anne. Cambridge: Brewer, 1998. 19–43. Print.Google Scholar
Forster, E. M. “Ancient and Modern.” 1936. Gardner 316–21.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. “A Child Is Being Beaten.” Freud, Standard Edition 17:179–204.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. Civilisation and Its Discontents. Freud, Standard Edition 21:57–146.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. “Hysterical Phantasies and Their Relation to Bisexuality.” Freud, Standard Edition 9:155–66.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Trans. and ed. Strachey, James. 24 vols. London: Hogarth, 1953–74. Print.Google Scholar
Gardner, Philip, ed. A. E. Housman: The Critical Heritage. London: Routledge, 1992. Print.Google Scholar
Garrod, H. W. “Mr. A. E. Housman.” Gardner 213–25.Google Scholar
Gibson, Ian. The English Vice. London: Duckworth, 1978. Print.Google Scholar
Graves, R. P. A. E. Housman: The Scholar-Poet. London: Routledge, 1979. Print.Google Scholar
Pierre, Guénolé. L‘étrange passion: La flagellation dans les mœurs d'aujourd‘hui. Paris: Office Centrale de Librairie, 1904. Print.Google Scholar
Harding, D. W., and Knights, L. C. “Flank-Rubbing and Criticism.” Scrutiny 2.2 (1933): 183–86. Rpt. in Gardner 239–41. Print.Google Scholar
Hugo, Hayn, and Gotendorf, Alfred. Bibliotheca Germanorum Erotica et Curiosa. 3rd ed. 9 vols. München: Müller, 1912–29. Print.Google Scholar
Housman, A. E. The Letters of A. E. Housman. Ed. Burnett, Archie. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Housman, A. E. “The Name and Nature of Poetry.” Collected Poems and Selected Prose. Ed. Ricks, Christopher. London: Penguin, 1988. 349–71. Print.Google Scholar
Housman, A. E. The Poems of A. E. Housman. Ed. Burnett, Archie. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Housman, A. E., and Housman, Laurence. A. E. H.: Some Poems, Some Letters and a Personal Memoir by His Brother Laurence Housman. London: Cape, 1937. Print.Google Scholar
Housman, Laurence. “A. E. Housman's ‘De Amicitia.‘” Encounter 29 (1967): 33–41. Print.Google Scholar
Jaf. Physiologie du vice. Paris: Offenstadt, n.d. Print.Google Scholar
Jarrell, Randall. “Texts from Housman.” A. E. Housman: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Ricks, Christopher. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice, 1968. 51–61. Print.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Morris. Sodom on the Thames: Sex, Love, and Scandal in Wilde Times. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Kucich, John. Imperial Masochism: British Fiction, Fantasy, and Social Class. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Laupts. Tares et poisons, perversion et perversité sexuelles. Paris: Carré, 1896. Print.Google Scholar
Leavis, F. R. “Imagery and Movement.” Scrutiny 13 (1945): 119–34. Print.Google Scholar
Leavis, F. R. “Literary Criticism and Philosophy: A Reply.” Scrutiny 6 (1937): 59–70. Print.Google Scholar
Leavis, F. R. New Bearings in English Poetry. London: Chatto, 1933. Print.Google Scholar
Leavis, F. R. New Bearings in English Poetry. Annotated by A. E. Housman. London: Chatto, 1932. Print. Spec. Collections Research Center, Southern Illinois U, Carbondale. Z/Gf 71499.Google Scholar
Leavis, F. R. “The Poetry of Pope.” Scrutiny 2 (1933): 268–84. Print.Google Scholar
Mendelson, Edward, ed. The English Auden. London: Faber, 1977. Print.Google Scholar
Moll, A. Les perversions de l'instinct génitale. Paris: Carré, 1893. Print.Google Scholar
Müller-Sievers, Helmut. “Verstummelung: Schiller, Fichte, Humbolt und die Genealogie des Masochismus.” Der ganze Mensch: Anthropologie und Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert. Ed. Schings, Hans-Jürgen. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994. 284–97. Print.Google Scholar
Naiditch, P. G. Additional Problems in the Life and Writing of A. E. Housman. Los Angeles: Johnson's, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Naiditch, P. G. “The Extant Portion of the Library of A. E. Housman: Part III. Classical Antiquity.” Housman Society Journal 30 (2004): 142–58. Print.Google Scholar
Naiditch, P. G. “The Extant Portion of the Library of A. E. Housman: Part IV. Non-classical Materials.” Housman Society Journal 31 (2005): 154–80. Print.Google Scholar
Naiditch, P. G. Problems in the Life and Writings of A. E. Housman. Beverly Hills: Krown, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Norris, Christopher. Foreword. F. R. Leavis. By Michael Bell. London: Routledge, 1988. vii–xv. Print.Google Scholar
Noyes, John. The Mastery of Submission: Inventions of Masochism. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1997. Print.10.7591/9781501732041CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, Norman. A. E. Housman: A Critical Biography. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1996. Print.10.1007/978-1-349-24584-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pallavicini, Ferrante. Alcibiade, enfant à l'école. Brussels: Marteau, 1891. Print.Google Scholar
Panormita, Antonius. Hermaphroditus Latinisch. Ed. Forberg, C. Fr. 2 vols. Leipzig: Weigel, 1908. Print.Google Scholar
Pater, Walter. The Renaissance. Ed. Phillips, Adam. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1986. Print. Oxford World's Classics.Google Scholar
Patmore, Coventry. Coventry Patmore's “Essay on English Metrical Law”: A Critical Edition with Commentary. Ed. Roth, Mary Augustine. Washington: Catholic U of Amer. P, 1961. Print.Google Scholar
Pavia, J. L. “Die männlich Homosexualität in England mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Londons (2).” Vierteljahrsberichte 2.1 (1910): 18–51. Print.Google Scholar
Pinch, Adela. “Female Chatter: Meter, Masochism, and the Lyrical Ballads.” ELH 55.4 (1988): 835–52. Print.Google Scholar
Pound, Ezra. “Mr. Housman at Little Bethel.” Criterion 13 (1933): 216–24. Print.Google Scholar
Prescott, E. Livingston. Flogging Not Abolished in the British Army. London: Bachhoffner, 1897. Print.Google Scholar
Prins, Yopie. Victorian Sappho. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Raitt, Suzanne. “The Rhetoric of Efficiency in Early Modernism.” Modernism/Modernity 13 (2006): 835–51. Print.10.1353/mod.2006.0016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rau, Hans. Der Sadismus in der Armee. Berlin: Bermühler, 1904. Print.Google Scholar
Reik, Theodor. Masochism in Modern Man. Trans. Margaret H. Beigel and Gertrud M. Kurth. New York: Farrar, 1941. Print.Google Scholar
Reinhard, W. Nell in Bridewell: Description of the System of Corporal Punishment (Flagellation) in the Female Prisons of South Germany up to the Year 1848: A Contribution to the History of Manners: From the German of W. Reinhard. Trans. W. C. Costello and A. R. Allinson. Paris: Soc. of British Bibliophiles, 1900. Print. Trans. of Lenchen im Zuchthause: Unveränderter Neudruck der Ausgabe von 1840. Karlsruhe: n.p., n.d.Google Scholar
Richards, I. A. Principles of Literary Criticism. London: Kegan Paul, 1925. Print.Google Scholar
Richards, I. A. Science and Poetry. London: Kegan Paul, 1926. Print.Google Scholar
Rosen, David. Power, Plain English, and the Rise of Modern Poetry. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006. Print.10.12987/yale/9780300100716.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenbaum, Julius. Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume. Halle: Lippert, 1845. Print.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. “A Poem Is Being Written.” Tendencies. London: Routledge, 1994. 177–214. Print.10.4324/9780203202210-12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shusterman, Ronald. Critique et poésie selon I. A. Richards. Bordeaux: PU de Bordeaux, 1988. Print.Google Scholar
Stewart, Susan R. Sublime Surrender: Male Masochism at the Fin-de-Siècle. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1998. Print.10.7591/9781501717741CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The Story of Seven Maidens: Slavery in West India. Cambridge: Andrews, 1907. Print.Google Scholar
Veriphantor. Der Flagellantismus: Ein Beitrag zur Sittengeschichte unserer Zeit. Berlin: Lielienthal, 1903. Print.Google Scholar
Veriphantor. Der Masochismus: Ein Beitrag zur Sittengeschichte unserer Zeit. Berlin: Lielienthal, 1903. Print.Google Scholar
Veriphantor. Der Sadismus: Ein Beitrag zur Sittengeschichte unserer Zeit. Berlin: Lielienthal, 1903. Print.Google Scholar
The Whippingham Papers. London: n.p., 1888. Print.Google Scholar
Wißenschaftlich-Humanitäres, Komitee. Gewichtige Stimmen über das Unrecht des §175 unseres Reichsstrafgesetzsbuchs. Leipzig: Spohr, 1913. Print.Google Scholar
Wulffen, E. Die Sexualverbrecher. Berlin: Langenscheidt, 1910. Print.Google Scholar