"To an Athlete Dying Young" Essay

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

The theme of this poem is about a high school basketball star that has become less successful in the

“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.

By contrasting a player’s ardent exuberance for basketball with his xxx disappointment in the poem “American Hero,” Essex Hemphill reveals the athlete’s conflict between his enthusiasm for the game and his resentment toward his superficial fans. For instance, the author emphasizes the player’s fervent frame of mind, “[having] nothing to lose... / I let the tension go. / Shoot for the net. / I slam it through...” (Hemphill 1, 8-9, 11-12). Hemphill illustrates the competitor’s energetic passion for basketball by describing his game-winning skills and slick athleticism. In contrast, the poet depicts the player’s resentfulness toward the cheering mass as he muses “I scored / thirty-two points this game / and they love me for it” (13-15). Despite

In Edward Hirsch's poem Execution, the All-American sport of football is used to illustrate how a man's beloved high school football coach is matched up with his greatest opponent yet, something that play books and trick plays cannot defeat, cancer.

According to the NCAA, only about 0.03% of high school basketball players get drafted out by an NBA team. 0.03% is such a little percentage that it is the same chance of someone getting four of a kind in a first round of poker (www.norwichcsd.org/Downloads/ ProSportsOdds.doc). With this striking percentage it is amazing to think so many young players hope to make it to the pros. In the end, regret and defeat are much too common, a theme that John Updike features in his poem, “Ex Basketball Player”. The poem's persona, Flick Webb, was surely not one of those lucky 0.03%. Flick Webb was the star basketball player at his high school. Now older, he works at a gas station, sometimes reliving his old dream by gloomily bouncing a tire by himself.

Remember that boy in high school that was the star of the basketball team? He still holds most of the records for the team. He scored more points than anyone else in the school’s history. He never studied much because he was an athlete. His basketball skills were going to take him places. But high school ended and there are no more games to be played. Where is that former all-star now? In his poem “Ex-Basketball Player,” John Updike examines the life of a former high school basketball star. Flick Webb was a local hero, and he loved basketball. He never studied much in school or learned a trade because he was a talented athlete. Now years later, the only job Flick can find is working at the local gas station. He used to be a star, but now

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.

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

Athletes go through the good times and the bad times throughout their years. It makes you wonder how some of the athletes we see today are so great at what they can accomplish during a game, event, career, and so on. Are the best of the best athletes that everyone knows about or hears about doing some sort of a pedestal? Are they choosing to take them? Or are they encouraged by the people? William Moller effectively uses the rhetorical appeals of pathos to support his argument that, “We, the public, place the best athletes on pedestals, gods on high.”

Furthermore, achievements are the fuel that powers others to push themselves and set goals. It is the never ending desire to improve. Louie Zamperini spent his whole life training to be a better runner. In other words, the fastest olympic runner in the world. But what is left of someone who has been striped of everything they know and love? In Louie's eyes, the answer is nothing. When he went to war he aspired to show his dedication to his country, although he could have never predicted the outcome that he would soon receive. Throughout Louie’s journey of war, he was deprived of food, dehydrated and constantly abused and tormented. The list is never ending. Louie might had cheated death hand full of times, but when he looked at his body all “he thought, is a dead body breathing” (Hillenbrand 182). He was ashamed of what his body had become, and in a way he had lost his greatest achievement. “Legs that had sprung through a 4;12 mile over bright sande on that last morning on Kualoa were now useless” (Hillenbrand 182). In this moment Louie felt defeated the most, although his journey did not stop there. It gave him motivation. In the poem the narrator says the phrase “watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools” (Kipling 15-16). To sum it up, it means that if you can use other peoples’ mistakes or wrong doings to

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.

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

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.