As the oldest of seven brothers and sisters, Alfred Edward Housman was born in 1859 in Fockbury, England. On his twelfth birthday, his mother passed away, leading to the pessimism his poetry expresses. In 1877, Housman studied Greek and Roman Classics while attending St. John’s College in Oxford. There he fell in love with his roommate, Moses Jackson, who did not share the same feelings as him. In 1892, he became the Professor of Latin at University College in London and then in 1911 at Trinity College in Cambridge, which he held until his death in 1936. Throughout his life, he only published two works of poetry: A Shropshire Lad in 1896, in which the majority of his poems were written after the death of his friend, Adalbert Jackson, and Last Poems in 1922. In both of these volumes, he centers the poems on common themes like “fleeting youth, grief, and death” (A.E. Housman), which are seen in the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young.”
The title, “To an Athlete Dying Young,” is relevant to the poem and the central theme because the entire poem is about a young athlete who has just passed away. The poem provides the reader with a point of view that praises this athlete for dying at a young age. “To an Athlete Dying Young,” is considered to be a lyric poem because of its rhythm and is classified as an elegy, “A somber poem or song that praises or laments the dead” (Cummings 1). The title impacts the central theme of the poem because of the first word, “To.” The word “To” implies that the poem is a toast or a salute to those athletes who die young. Also, it creates a more personal bond between the speaker and the athlete. This is crucial because this title correlates with the theme. In the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young,” the speaker, ...
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...er reaching this glory.
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“Ex-basketball Player” seems to have a more negative tone than “To an Athlete Dying Young.” Though, both a talk about former athlete’s glorious past when the runner in the first dies and the athlete in the second retired. In the poem ‘To an Athlete Dying Young” the runner dies at a young age of natural causes even though his fame does not but while in “Ex-Basketball Player” the fame of Flick washes away in his growing of age. The tone of “To an Athlete Dying Young” overall is much more positive since the poet praises the young athlete as "smart" to leave a world where glory does not remain and can only vanish. It is far better to die young, as Houseman suggests, than to join the many who had enjoyed glory but now have faded. Dying young
Ryan reminds us of the suggestive power of poetry–how it elicits and rewards the reader’s intellect, imagination, and emotions. I like to think that Ryan’s magnificently compressed poetry – along with the emergence of other new masters of the short poem like Timothy Murphy and H.L. Hix and the veteran maestri like Ted Kooser and Dick Davis – signals a return to concision and intensity.
The speakers in the A. E. Housman poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” and the Edward Arlington Robinson poem “Richard Cory” serve different purposes but use irony and rhyme to help convey their message. In “To an Athlete Dying Young” the speaker’s purpose is to show the audience that dying young with glory is more memorable than dying old with glory. In “Richard Cory” the speaker’s purpose is to show the audience “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” In the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” the author uses rhyme to show the reader how the glory of the runner came and went in a dramatic way. By having rhyme in “To an Athlete Dying Young” it allows the irony in the poem and the meaning that poet A. E. Housman is trying to convey, to really stick with the readers.
A. E. Housman's "To an Athlete Dying Young," also known as Lyric XIX in A
Clark, W.G., and W. Aldis Wirhgt, eds. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Vol 2. USA: Nd. 2 vols.
To An Athlete Dying Young and Crossing the bar are similar poems. They both have the theme of death. In to An Athlete Dying Young, Houseman is telling a young athlete that his fame will last forever because he dies young. Consequently, in Crossing the Bar, Tennyson says that his death is coming soon and that he is ready to cross over. However, the different rhyme schemes of the poems help establish a different tone in each one like, less serious tone for To An Athlete Dying Young and a more serious tone for Crossing the Bar.
Dickman’s poems are confessional and narrative enough to be entries in his diary. Dickman writes all of his poems like an autobiography; telling a story from his point of view incorporating his thoughts and ideas. He expresses what he believes and what he likes, while telling a descriptive story that, often, has a digression from his
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When in high school, the glory days of being the shining star of athletics is such a sweet victory. The crowd chants your name and the state knows the skills you can display. Your body is still growing and gaining muscle; a new exciting discovery to unfold every new season. The feeling of setting records could not be replicated in any other shape or form. No one could take it away from you, other than yourself. Could death itself shatter those dreams, or allow the name to ring on forever? In A. E. Housman’s To an Athlete Dying Young, Houseman portrays that death is a good thing in a young athlete’s life as they will never have to see their records broken, earth would not be allowed to limit abilities with age, and their name will never be forgotten while they are still living.
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He was still disillusioned by the injustices in life which separated him from God, but he was much more nostalgic for the innocence of his childhood. Housman insisted his poetry was not based on his own pain, but mankind. That was completely the opposite of how he wrote. He projected his own pain into the poetry he wrote. It was as if all of his troubles were too insufferable for him to bear, so he projected them into his work and gave them voice. As time wore on, Housman became more cynical and pessimistic about God and all of the religion he was reared to believe in. Pessimism is the root of atheism. Not believing in God results from a feeling of rejection; losing God results in a loss of ego. Housman was both an atheist and a pessimist. By not believing in God, a supreme being, everything else holds no value. Goodness is blurred by the veil of atheism. Pessimism is a hallmark of atheism, even for those who keep their
Everett, Glenn. "Alfred, Lord Tennyson: A Brief Biography." The Victorian Web. Victorian Web, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2014. .