Housman’s Poem, To an Athlete Dying Young Essay

An Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Houseman and “Crossing The Bar” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson are poems that very similar to each other yet so different. “To An Athlete Dying Young” is about an athlete who dies young and Houseman congratulates him because people will remember him forever. “Crossing the Bar” is about Tennyson realizing that he is about to die and he accepts his fate. Both poems have a similar theme of death. Both authors make clever uses of symbols such as, in “To An Athlete Dying Young…

sounds a lot like an athlete at the high school level of sports winning the game and everyone gets excited. High school is the primary years of learning a sport and finding your talents. As you enter college and continue to do sports, you find that your talent is met with many other people who also are good at a particular sport. Sports can be anything including basketball, football, soccer, badminton, tennis, ping pong, and even cross country skiing. You are considered an athlete if you participate…

Being an athlete myself, I understanding this idea of being on top of the world and never wanting to come down. In this A.E. Housman poem this theme is taken to its full extent. Never coming down and losing your fame is death in “To an Athlete Dying Young”. Not ever letting anyone forget who the true champion is and now was. The main theme of this poem is that champions can not be champions forever unless they die a champion. In today’s world, champions are praised for winning. They could be an…

Essay: "To An Athlete Dying Young" vs. "Ex-Basketball Player" “To An Athlete Dying Young” and “Ex-Basketball Player” share the lives of two very different athletes. Both experience success in their lives, but one dies with his glory while the other lives past his days of glory and works at a gas pump where he is not recognized. The poems discuss the importance of having glory and keeping that glory as long as possible. Through the poems the readers learn the benefits of dying young as well as the…

Everyone wants to be a champion. Many people have the dream of becoming a college athlete and going down in history. With the many controversies in athletics today it is getting harder to fulfill this dream. One of the main controversies is college athletes becoming employees of the college. There are many reasons why athletes should not be employees. College athletes should not be considered employees of the college it will send a bad message to younger generations, cause contract disagreements…

317). Angrily storming out, the mother made it clear to the coach that she refused to pay for years of practice without the hopes of her daughter placing in competitions. For children, such as the disappointed little girl, hoping to become an elite athlete, it would be useful to have an available tool to help them decide on a sport to pursue based on what their body’s type and capacity is. Instead of dwelling in sports where a child would not have the chance to reach high levels, such as the Olympics…

of “To an Athlete Dying Young” In his poem “To an Athlete Dying Young”, A.E. Housman makes a quite different approach on death. People have different perspectives on death, but more often than not, it is viewed as an undesirable event that people wish to avoid. The speaker in the poem, however, praises a young and famous athlete for dying before he became old and forgotten. This can be interpreted two very different ways. One can assume Housman believes that the only way for athletes to capture…

“To an Athlete Dying Young” begins with a very familiar image of victory, which is very easy for most readers to visualize because the image of victory has been seen by many people. Nearing the end of the poem, however, the poem’s image becomes less familiar or a bit ambiguous because it is unexpected. Housman believes dying young after achieving greatness or fame is the way to live, and the poem’s speaker attempts to convey the message of dying young to the runner ( ). The poem’s protagonist (the…

Sydney Walcher Instructor, Lisa Ward English 1213 8 April 2013 To an Athlete Dying Young A.E. Housman was a poet born in 1859 who became very successful during his lifetime. “To an Athlete Dying Young” represents the theme of glory is fleeting by illustrating the point that if a successful athlete dies young, they will not have to worry about their glory of victory fading. They can rest in peace knowing they will be remembered at their athletic peak when they were successful and victorious. They…

For a very long time the question has been apparent in humans minds. The question is whether to die young and remembered? Or to die old withering and slowly being forgotten. In our prime when were at our best in life there may have been records set by one single person or even as a team. As we age as all humans do those records are broken over and over again by those generations and generations below us. Slowly those who were once all stars and super stars are being forgotten by those who know them…