To An Athlete Dying Young Essay

“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.

“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 consequences of living after one's glory has faded. Where Houseman glorifies the athlete for his achievements and early death, Updike portrays the disappointment of the athlete living past his days of glory and not reaching high

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.

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

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

“To An Athlete Dying Young” has multiple noticeable features in its style. The poem is written in the form of a narrative poem, or lyric ballad, in which a story is told. This form of

Although, “To an Athlete Dying Young” and “The Chimney Sweeper” are two completely different pieces of poetry, they have a similar theme and concept to the story being told. Both have two different outlooks on the concept of death, yet their topic is the same, being one of the young dying. “To an Athlete Dying Young” celebrates the life of an athletes past life. It talks about the best of their days being in the

The poet sees the event as a celebratory moment because unlike other athletes who live to see their records broken, the athlete who dies young will never have to see the fate. The young athlete dies at the peak and does not have to experience the fall. The final device Housman uses in “To an Athlete Dying Young” is the tone throughout the poem. The tone that adds the ironic theme is composed of

"To An Athlete Dying Young" is a sonnet in A.E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad . It is portrayed as a verse lyric furthermore a funeral poem. It is maybe a standout amongst the most understood lyrics relating to right on time demise; for this situation, that of a young fellow at the tallness of his physical force. Nobody recollects the triumphant minutes that he lived and the wonderfulness of his prosperity vanishes with age. The lyric difficulties the conventional thought of carrying on with a long life and objects that it is disastrous to pass on youthful. A youthful athletic champion's passing being grieved at his burial service where the writer understands that this early demise is to be sure his good

How To Leave a Legacy To die young is an event that has always happened to people in this world. When people die young, it makes their friends and family think why they died young and how he or she could’ve used their life more wisely. In the poem, “To an Athlete Dying Young,” A.E. Housman uses the relationship between symbolism and double entendres about death and honor to display that dying young allows the dead to be remembered better than people who have passed away old, weary, and forgotten. Housman utilizes symbolism to prove that dying young after a great achievement will let people treasure the memory for longer. While the the athletes and townsmen are gathered in near the dead athlete, Housman writes about the “road all runners come,”(5),

To an Athlete Dying Young by Alfred Edward (A.E.) Housman is a fairly short, yet powerful poem. This poem is extremely relatable to anyone who is an athlete or knows one. The reader finds themes related to death and pride. Housman’s writing style, imagery, the context in which this was written and his views on athletes contribute to the themes of this poem. Housman’s writing style has been described as very realistic, which in return creates a pessimistic feeling. E. Christian Kopff writes that “He treated the moral virtues, including patriotism, the love of beauty, the search for truth, and friendship as realities that imposed lifelong obligations. He lived and wrote as though morality and duty were real, not "hollow fictions" (Kopff 237). In Housman’s To an Athlete Dying Young his writing style, imagery and the context of the story greatly add to the theme of the poem and create a sense of relatability that will outlast many generations.

The author of the poem “To An Athlete Dying Young,” shows how dying young at the edge of something you want to accomplish or would want to change in the world is better than living to be forgotten. In this poem you could tell the speaker knew what the athlete life was life like or had some type of experience with it by the way the speaker is speaking. It is clear that the message the poet is trying to relay is that fame and glory doesn’t last and in this poem glory is fleeting.

The poem “To an dying young athlete” has a cheerful beginning where everything seems all well until it goes a little further into the poem. It suddenly turns dark and twisted telling the reader that they are carrying the athlete on their shoulders but not in glee or cheer, but in sorrow because the athlete has died young. There carrying him in a coffin so that they can bury him, it then goes into detail on how people used to nearly worship him for he was a town poster boy he was the star athlete that everyone had come to love. Now he is in a coffin on the way to the grave, the streets that he is being carried on used to be filled with cheering townsfolk who’d go to the game and had seen his race they've loved this kid and now there quiet, there

Housman’s view of death contrasts from that of Thomas because Housman accepts that dying young can be something positive. In A.E. Housman’s poem, To an Athlete Dying Young, he writes, “Smart lad, to slip betimes away … ” Here, Housman is saying that the athlete who died was smart to do so. Glory is something that fades quickly, especially in running. People can achieve great things in athletics, and they will become a household name, until the next great athlete comes along and does something even greater. Housman is saying that by going out young, he is going out on top, and he cannot become another Mark Spitz, someone who’s former glory withered away into his dental practice. Another great point Housman makes is that, “Eyes the shady night

If someone were to die young they would lose chances of having children of their own to keep the family name or even to have grandchildren after a while. If life to this person were all about sports and being in their prime then they really lose sight of what should be important in life. Experiencing love from others and loving others should be a more important thing to have in life and shouldn’t be taken for granted. On page 1092 line 21 of A.E. Housman’s poem it says, “So set, before its echo fades.” Basically saying to die before your echo of glory fades and as long as a human has someone or several people who genuinely care about them around their echo will never fade.