To An Athlete Dying Young Essay

No matter how big or great one is, he cannot escape death. In Randall Jarrell’s 1963 writing of “Say Good-bye to Big Daddy,” the poet describes Big Daddy Lipscomb as a football lineman superstar. His goliath size makes him impenetrable on the football field. Randall describes Big Daddy as the “Rock of Gibraltar”; however, it may also be Big Daddy’s sportsmanship and compassion for others that has made him a superstar. Although he was capable of pulling the largest of men to the ground, he was always sure to help them back up. Big Daddy is conscious of the fact that his actions are viewed by not only adults but also young impressionable children. He doesn’t want those young minds to think of him in a negative manner, and this is one reason he helps those he tackles back to their feet.

Flick Webb possess hopes and dreams that unexpectedly vanished, and even now he still reminisces about the glory days. It is difficult to let go, and once still dwell on memories once had. Many athletes have that dream to become something great, some inherit a bright future; however, many do not. In John Updike’s poem “Ex Basketball Player,” Flick Webb was once that star basketball player, who didn’t inherit that bright future, as a consequence works at a mediocre job. In “Ex Basketball Player,” Updike utilizes imagery to dramatize conflict among Flick’s past success with his present failure.

The idea of death can be, and is an enormously disturbing, unknown issue in which many people can have many different opinions. To some individuals, the process of life can progress painstakingly slow, while for others life moves too fast. In the excerpt We Were the Mulvaneys, by Joyce Carol Oates, a innocent farm boy named Judd Mulvaney has an eye-opening encounter by a brook near his driveway. During this encounter, Judd faces a chain of feelings and emotions that lead to his change of opinion of the issues of life and death, and change as a character. This emblematic imagery of life and death, as well as jumpy, and retrospective tones benefit the development of Judd as an innocent child as he begins to change into a more conscious and aware adult.

The poems “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas and “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman both discuss how each author views death. But, both poems have drastically different opinions upon the matter. Thomas in “Do Not Go Gentle” is full despair and hatred towards death, and is tries to convince his father not to accept death. Whereas, Housman in “To an Athlete” expresses that a young death is beautiful and glorious. That a young death shouldn’t be just seen as sad, but more as honorable.

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.

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 will not have to go through the pain of watching their fame disappear or whither out with time. In this poetic masterpiece, Housman pulls together figurative language, sound devices, and structure to illustrate that glory is fleeting through a

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 the glory is to die when at the peak of their careers. One might criticize him for having such a pessimistic view of life, but we must realize that we are among many people who give those athletes the feeling of disgrace as they are no

“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 this poem, the author writes a letter to a young athlete. He explains, that when you are in high school and breaking records and making history it is an incredible achievement. Although, when eventually you are also going to be beaten out, and someone new will take your record. Then the question arose, “Is it best to die young, once you’ve broken records, so that you don’t have to witness your hard work to also vanish from someone else?” Throughout my high school career, I have broken the record of all-time scoring in women’s basketball at WHS. It is a huge honor, and I am blessed to hold that title. I believe that even though, one day someone will break my record, I would still want to be around to witness such. I know what I did, what I accomplished, and I still hold all the memories of those four years of high school basketball, so watching someone also succeed and take on that honor after me would be amazing. I wouldn’t want to miss out on watching another young athlete succeed. Obviously, another significant text that we read second semester would be Alfred Edward Housman’s poem To An Athlete Dying

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

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.

Poetry is an art form that has often been highly regarded. It brings together some of the most complex forms of writing in the English language. Two poems that focus on the same topic may sometimes, have completely different views and provide perspectives that may not have been considered by the other. Two of these Poems are Let Me Die A Youngman’s Death by Roger McGough and On Death by Anne Killigrew. The former poem by Roger McGough talks of how the speaker does not wish to die the peaceful death of an elderly person but rather the chaotic death of a young man. In death is nothing at all the speaker proposes that all should be as happy as before his death, and not view it in such a negative and secretive light.

True role models are those who possess the qualities that we would like to have. Role models are those who have affected us in ways that influence us to be better people. They are people who others imitate, emulate or look to for guidance. There are good role models who inspire greatness in others and bad role models who are bad influences. There are even anti-role models, pegged by the media as "bad girls" or "bad boys" who serve as good examples of what not to do if you want to become a successful, respected person. With the majority of my time spent as an athlete throughout high school and college, I believe athletes should pose as role models.

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.

Raising children in today’s society is not for the faint of heart. Raising children has never been easy, but it is especially difficult in youth sports today. Coaches and parents are putting a lot of pressure on our young sons and daughters. The pressure to succeed in sports at