Analysis of oh who is that young sinner

Poems for Kids. Poetry for Teens. Lesson Plans. Resources for Teachers. Academy of American Poets. American Poets Magazine. Poems Find and share the perfect poems. Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists? Housman is probably best known for his epic work A Shropshire Lad which was a collection of 63 different poems evoking the lost way of life of young men in rural areas towards the end of the 19 th century.

It was completed in and one of the lines buried deep within was actually adopted for the James Bond film Die Another Day. The lines are:. Housman was born in Worcestershire in March , in a small hamlet called Fockbury which is not too far from Bromsgrove.

He was one of seven children and his father was a solicitor. He lost his mother when he was only 12 years old but this did not prevent him from having a good education. He wrote a great deal of poetry while at Bromsgrove School and won a number of awards for it. In the above poem A E Houseman criticises the imprisonment of Oscar Wilde in Reading Jail for being a practicing homosexual at a time when it was illegal to participate in homosexual acts between consenting adults.

Throughout his life Houseman avoided the fate of his contemporary, Wilde, however the sympathy for a fellow soul in pain shines through in the above poem.

You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Google account. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email. Previous Share Flag Next. You may remember past mentions on my blog of Oscar Wilde and his poems. Wilde's writing continues to resonate more than a century later. Wilde spent time in prison for "gross indecency" a phrase used to indicate his homosexuality , and emerged a somewhat broken man.

Housman wrote the following poem about Wilde's incarceration, but withheld publication of the poem until after his death. I'm not certain what Housman's precise views on homosexuality were he certainly had fallen in love with his heterosexual roommate at school and been rebuffed , I like to think that Housman was ahead of his times in realizing that homosexuality is innate, and not a choice. Certainly his comparison to something as God-given as the color of one's hair seems to indicate that that may have been the case.

Housman Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?