Because I Liked You Better

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Because I Liked You Better

• A.E Housman

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Brief Biography

• He was born in 1859 in Worcestershire and won a
  scholarship to St John's College, Oxford . At
  Oxford he also fell in love for the first and
  only time. Housman was gay. Moses Jackson was
  not he was a beefy rowing blue someone who had
  earned the equivalent of an American varsity
  letter up in Oxford on a science scholarship.
  Homosexuality he called 'beastliness' or
  'spooniness'. And that for Housman meant a
  lifetime of unfulfilled loneliness.

Last Poems came out in 1922, the year that Moses
Jackson died of stomach cancer in Vancouver. It's
very likely the book was written and put together
just for him. Jackson read it before he died.
The letter Housman wrote has not been made
public, but is said to be very self-revealing. He
died in 1936.
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XXXI

• Because I liked you better
• Than suits a man to say,
• It irked you, and I promised
• To throw the thought away.
• To put the world between us
• We parted, stiff and dry
• Good-bye,' said you, forget me.'
• I will, no fear', said I.
• If here, where clover whitens
• The dead man's knoll, you pass,
• And no tall flower to meet you
• Starts in the trefoiled grass,
• Halt by the headstone naming
• The heart no longer stirred,
• And say the lad that loved you
• Was one that kept his word.

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Language
Because I liked you better Than suits a man to
say, It irked you, and I promised To throw the
thought away.

• Whose perspective is this poem from? Who is the
  persona?
• Can you find three examples of understatement in
  this first stanza? i.e. where the speaker makes
  something significant seem less important. Why
  are these used?
• What does suits a man suggest?
• What does the phrase throw the thought away
  suggest?

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Language
Because I liked you better Than suits a man to
say, It irked you, and I promised To throw the
thought away.

• The first line establishes the perspective as
  first person with the speaker addressing a past
  lover.
• Liked is chosen rather than Loved, an
  understatement signalling the emotional
  restraint of the rest of the poem. The speaker
  feels unable to express his emotions to their
  full extent, perhaps because he is afraid of
  rejection.
• Than suits a man to say expresses the Victorian
  belief that men should be stoic and unemotional,
  feelings were seen as feminine and unmanly.
• It irked you is another understatement meaning
  it annoyed the object of the speakers affection,
  who we can assume to be a man, knowing that the
  poet was homosexual.
• The speakers lover was ashamed of their romance
  and asked him to throw the thought away an
  image showing the rejection of the speaker by
  his lover. The use of understatement here also
  belittles the affection felt by the speaker, as
  he is unimportant to his lover.

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Language Stanza 2
To put the world between us We parted, stiff
and dry Good-bye,' said you, forget me.' I
will, no fear', said I.

• Who does the world refer to?
• Could stiff and dry have more than one
  interpretation?
• What impression does the reader get of the final
  words between the two men?

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Language Stanza 2
To put the world between us We parted, stiff
and dry Good-bye,' said you, forget me.' I
will, no fear', said I.

• The world in line 5 could be a metaphor for
  Victorian society, showing the prevalent
  homophobic attitude at the time. In fact,
  homosexuality was a crime and Oscar Wilde,
  another Victorian poet and playwright was
  convicted and jailed for the crime of being gay.
  The metaphor could show that society is between
  us, an obstacle keeping the lovers apart.
• The diction of stiff and dry shows the awkward
  and cold parting of the two lovers. It could also
  be said to have sexual connotations.
• Good-bye..forget me and I will, no fear
  hearken back to the understatement in the first
  line. This unemotional language encapsulates the
  misery of the speaker, he has been rendered
  inarticulate, unable to express his true emotions
  for fear of judgement by his lover and society.

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Language Stanza 3
If here, where clover whitens The dead man's
knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

• How has time and place changed in this stanza?
• Look at the botanical references in this stanza
  (three of them). What do they suggest?
• What might tall flower refer to?

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Language Stanza 3
If here, where clover whitens The dead man's
knoll, you pass, And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

• There is a shift in time to the third and fourth
  stanza. Having parted with his lover, the speaker
  is dead and buried in a graveyard The dead man's
  knoll while his lover is walking past. There
  could be an element of botanical imagery in this
  stanza, Clover and Trefoiled grass are weeds
  and could represent the sorrow of the life the
  speaker has led, the tall flower therefore
  could represent joy and happiness, which has been
  felt by neither man. This has been implied by the
  use of no, an example of negative diction.

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Language Stanza 4
Halt by the headstone naming The heart no
longer stirred, And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word

• What sound is predominant in this stanza and what
  is the effect of this?
• This stanza begins with an imperative. Why do
  you think Housman does this?
• There is a significant change in the vocabulary
  of this stanza? Which word choices are
  particularly noticeable? Why does Housman start
  using this vocabulary at this stage?
• Why are the last two lines ironic (in two ways)?

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Language Stanza 4
Halt by the headstone naming The heart no
longer stirred, And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word

• The alliteration in the first two lines Halt
  headstone heart shows that to an extent the
  rigid self control that has been prevalent
  throughout the poem has relaxed somewhat.
• In this stanza we see diction more usually
  associated with romantic poetry heart,
  stirred and loved. Perhaps now that the
  speaker is dead he is finally able to express his
  emotions to his lover.
• The last two lines are ironic, as through writing
  the poem, the speaker has broken his promise to
  never speak of their love.

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Structure

• What do you notice about the rhythm and rhyme of
  this poem?
• Why does Housman use this structure?
• Where is the obvious break in the poem?
• Why is the fact that the poem spans two different
  time frames significant?
• Find two examples of a
• Masculine ending (stressed syllable at end of
  line)
• Feminine ending (unstressed syllable at end)

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Structure

• The tight controlled trimeters of this poem, with
  their alternating feminine and masculine endings,
  could be said to mirror the stiff and dry
  emotional restraint which they describe.
• The poem is divided into four stanzas , the first
  two describing the parting of the lovers, the
  last two projecting forward to the speakers
  gravesite. This lapse in time intensifies the
  misery of the speaker, as his unrequited love has
  lasted so long.

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Final thoughts

• What is the overall tone created in this poem? Do
  you find it melodramatic or touching? Debate.
• Which poems could you compare it with and why?
  Find key quotations that you could link.

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Compare with..

• Which poems go well with this one?