Traces of A. E. Housman (and Shakespeare) in Hemingway

Abstract

Hemingway admired Housman’s A Shropshire Lad but dismissed Last Poems . Yet Hemingway’s work shows traces of Housman poems from both volumes. There are resemblances between Housman’s “The Carpenter’s Son” and Hemingway’s “To Will Davies” and Chapter XV of in our time , Housman’s “Soldier from the wars returning” and “Soldier’s Home,” Housman’s “The Deserter” and A Farewell to Arms , Housman’s “Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries” and Hemingway’s “The Mercenaries,” and Housman’s “The Day of Battle” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” In the last instance both Housman and Hemingway quote Shakespeare’s most famous lines on courage and cowardice.