Essay on Analysis of to an Athlete Dying Young

The poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman depicts the funeral of a young champion runner, who has died at the peak of his youth and athletic career. The poem makes note of the sorrow of a young life being cut short, but also glorifies the death of the athlete for capturing the young runner in the prime of his life. Housman’s poem was written in the form of the classical lyric poem, which could be influenced by Housman’s early tutoring in Greek and Latin lyric poetry (Holzberger 4). The poem also makes use of a four-line ballad stanza, which Housman forms into an elegy for the young runner as he reflects on the runner’s death (Holzberger 7). The use of symbols throughout the poem such as the

“To an Athlete Dying Young”, by A.E. Housman, is a thought provoking elegy. The poem is about the early demise of an accomplished runner. Surely, it is sad when someone dies too soon especially when there is so much to look forward to. One may ask, “Is there an advantage of dying young?” Well, there is! In this poem, Housman shows the silver lining to dying young during the height of one’s success.

“Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters.” A.E. Housman grew up in a small town in Worcestershire, London. His childhood ended at the age of twelfth because his mother passed away. Then he went to this University where he fell into a dark love and made him depressed. He worked really hard and got a job as a professor at the University College in London. Although he does all of his teaching and helping scholars he is most known for his poetry. His poems display deep feelings and are emotionless. His poems usually affected the reader like a shiver down the spine or a punch in the stomach. I am going to be talking about three messages from the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman.

In “To An Athlete Dying Young,” Housman refers to “the rout / of lads that wore their honors out.” A rout is a

Sudden death Young Competitive Athletes is subject to many risk factors, and cardiovascular risk factors seem to be the leading cause. Decreasing or minimizing the risks associated with this health concern is the key. A study over 27 years of time span consisted of 1866 athletes that range from 38 various sports was conducted in the hope of better understanding this heath crisis. Athletes who suffered sudden death or survived cardiac arrest with an age range of 19±6 within the United States were included in the study. The totally reported of sudden cardiac death is significantly higher than any other causes, with the highest of 76 for the year of 2005-2006. The mean was 66 deaths per year during the last 6 years of the study. Sudden

A. E. Housman was a well known poet of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Within his two most famous publications, A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems, Housman effectively uses his adept understanding of language, its usage, and style to portray the significant themes behind all of his poems. To an Athlete Dying Young is a perfect example of Housman’s ability to convey his message to the reader through his use of diction, syntax, and tone.

The strength less dead are the athletes whose “name died before the man”(20). Housman emphasizes through the imagery that it is better to do while one is still remembered since the glory will stay with him and not fade away. “To An Athlete Dying Young” glorifies the athlete through the use of imagery while “Ex-Basketball Player” uses it to emphasize the athlete’s fading glory.

Lastly, why do I agree with Housman that aging brings sadness to an athlete? Looking at Lines 16-20 of, “To an Athlete Dying Young,” we see Housman’s idea of a dying athlete. “Now you will not swell the rout of lads that wore their honors out, runners whom renown outran and the name died before the man.” This quote explains that once the athlete had many fans that adored him, but as time went by lost fans and became a normal person, not someone they looked up to. I agree with Housman on this poem with the fact of sports today. Sports today focus on the young, strong, and non-injured players to bring in wins not losses. As an athlete ages we see that their fan base is changed because those fans like the young athletes more now than they like the older athlete. Even with this happening in sports teams today, we have to see these athletes are still considerably young with ages in the thirties, forties, and fifties. That is young

The poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” begins with a positive tone. It begins with the past when the times were happy and the athlete won the race. The crowd was “cheering” and they carried the athlete “shoulder-high” as they took him home (Housman 3,4). The tone for the beginning of the poem is enthusiastic. The athlete in this poem was very good at running and the town was proud of what he had accomplished. It also made him proud of his accomplishment because of the way that the town treated him after he succeed.

Greatness in sports is a status that only very few reach, however to be labeled the greatest athlete of all time is for that one soul individual who excels at all aspects of the game and exceeds every other player in that sport. In my exploratory essay I established what makes an athlete the greatest athlete of all time. In the following paragraph I am going to summarize what makes an athlete the greatest athlete of all time. For the sake of the argument to follow I am going to stick with just the NFL. When I look at the NFL one name comes to mind when thinking about the greatest NFL player of all time. His name is Tom Brady. Tom Brady is the greatest of all time.

Housman utilizes the elegiac form to illustrate death as a triumph over the pain of an athlete’s fading glory, and he develops this idea by using images of victory and death. He first depicts death as a doorway, and as the athlete passes through, he “hold[s] to [its] low lintel up/ The still-defended challenge cup” (Housman 23-24). In lifting his trophy at the door of death, the athlete becomes an image of everlasting triumph, as there is no longer the possibility of his defeat. The depiction of death as a threshold also suggests that it is merely a passage from one stage of life to another, diminishing death’s finality. Housman then calls the athlete a “[s]mart lad, to slip betimes away” (Housman 9), for “ . . . early though the laurel grows/

This is expressed by the multiple examples of old men whom regret certain aspects of their lives and defy death even when they know their time is up. The speaker is urging his father to fight against old age and death. The meaning and subject of the poem influence the tone and mood. The tone is one of frustration and insistence. Thomas is slightly angry and demanding. His words are not a request, they are an order. The mood of the poem is is serious and solemn due to the poem focusing mainly on the issue of death. This mood and tone is created by words such as “burn”(2), “Grieved”(11) and “rage”(3) along with phrases such as “crying how bright”(7), “forked no lightning”(5), “near death”(13) and “fierce tears”(17). The insistent feeling is also created by the repetition of the lines “Do not go gentle into that good night”(1), and “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”(3). The figurative language used also affect how the meaning, tone and mood are interpreted.

The first stanza paints a celebration for the athlete that had won the “town the race”. The indication of heavy celebration to heavy mourning shows how strongly the athlete had impacted the town. With the death of the athlete “we brought you shoulder-high” (l.4); is a piece of imagery that is also double entendre, as caskets are also held shoulder high. Ultimately these pieces of imagery show how much the athlete achieved through their short time with the

Today in sports athletes endure many mental and physical obstacles from there competitive environment. Many of today's best athletes work with sports psychologists to help them handle the pressures found in this competitive atmosphere. One question that athletes ask is, why cant they play in big games as well as they anticipate themselves doing? Sports psychologists feel that spending all their time on body conditioning and athletic skills will not ensure that athletes reach their peak performance.

Sports and religion are things that can go together in many ways. Sports were founded on religion and were kept strong by religion. Now sport is taking over as religion almost in today's world. Sports can promote things that are not necessarily right according to God but we participate anyway. While how the mind and body are connected give another way of how sport is. Finally, we see that sports in a modern context have changed greatly and are ritual heavy one would almost say idolic. Religion and sports are both here to stay and they really are a way something that can unite everyone.