Crystal Gross
EN 111- IS3
November 1, 2015
Poetry Essay
Summary of “To an Athlete Dying Young”
A. E. Housman published the book A Shropshire Lad in 1896 in which “To an Athlete Dying Young” appears. The poem has seven stanzas written as quatrains. Each quatrain has two couplets that rhyme. In “To an Athlete Dying Young” the rhyming scheme is AABB. This unique style of writing was complemented by the AABB format. This format of the poem gave the feeling of going forward and backwards. As a result of the speaker 's statement of a faded memory and being forgotten really played well providing great imagery to the work that felt surreal to the point made throughout the poem. “To an Athlete Dying Young” presents to the reader the tragedy of
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The alliteration is found in lines 1, 5, 8, and 22. Line 1: the time you won your town the race (Housman). Line 5: road all runners… (Housman) Line 8: townsmen of a stiller town (Houseman). Line 22: …fleet foot. The alliteration enhances the rhythm of the poem. The apostrophe addresses someone absent or dead as though they were alive and present and were able to reply. The entire poem applies the apostrophe because the person addressed is the young athlete who is already dead. The extended metaphor is comparing the race to the boy’s life that he lived. As seen in lines 8, 10, 13, and 19, the boy literally had won a race and that had brought him glory for both him and the town. Then the poem moves into the road that everyone must travel to his or her grave. Line 8: …stiller town is a comparison of the cemetery to a town (Housman). Line 10: fields where glory does not stay is a comparison of glory to a person or thing the leaves the fields (Housman). Line 13: eyes the shady night has shut is a comparison of death to night (Housman). Line 19: runners whom renown outran is a comparison of renown to an athlete (Housman). Oxymoron is found in line 14. Line 14: silence sounds. Simile can be found in 12. Line 12: it withers quicker than the rose is a comparison of the endurance of laurel (Housman), a symbol of glory and victory to the endurance of a rose. …show more content…
Stanza 1 is the view of the poem is to say that the young boy won a race and was carried through the town with the crowds cheering for him and showing their pride in him. In stanza 2 the boy had run his final race and has passed away. The town’s people have now taken him to the cemetery and left the casket at the edge of his grave. Stanza 3 there is an unusual stance toward his death, the boy is lucky that he died when he was still wearing his “wreath of victory,” because glory doesn’t last. In stanza 4 since the boy has died he will not have to deal with the pain of another athlete breaking his records and having to listen to everyone cheer for the new athlete. In stanza 5 the fame is fleeting, the boy will not be added to the list of boys that had outlived their glory before they had died, but will be added to the list of those who had died while being in glory. In stanza 6, holding up the trophy that he had won when doing his race remembers the boy. In stanza 7 the “wreath of victory” will never wither, when the townspeople think of the boy his “wreath of victory will be as fresh as
First of alll, the poem is divided into nine stanzas, where each one has four lines. In addition to that, one can spot a few enjambements for instance (l.9-10). This stylistic device has the function to support the flow of the poem. Furthermore, it is crucial to take a look at the choice of words, when analysing the language.
The speaker addresses three advantages to dying young in To an Athlete Dying Young, by A. E. Houseman, these are an athlete’s glory fading, records broken, and being forgotten. After the athlete’s death, the speaker states that the athlete was right to leave “fields where glory does not stay” (10). Moreover, the speaker implies that the athlete is lucky because he will never live to see the glory of his achievements fade away. Similarly, following the athlete’s burial the speaker states that the athlete “Cannot see the record cut” (14). Furthermore, the speaker implies that an early death is to the athlete’s advantage because he will never see his records and achievements beaten by another athlete. Lastly, the speaker states that the athlete
Both poems have a propitious view of the theme of death. In “To An Athlete Dying Young” Houseman praises the young athlete for dying relatively young. He says “smart lad…not stay (9-10).” Houseman tells the athlete that he was smart to die at a young age because he can no longer witness his glory fade away as he gets older. His interpretation of death is very ironic. Many people consider it a tragedy when an athlete dies young because the athlete cannot further his career anymore, but Houseman argues that an athlete should not further his career because once he is old, he is a shell of his former self. By taking his life during a young age, the athlete gave himself eternal life in people’s mind. Moreover, in “Crossing The Bar”, Tennyson describes death as something people should not fear. Tennyson k...
This first stanza recollects the young athlete being carried away on the townspeople 's shoulders after winning a race. Therefore, following lines after going into the athlete’s current situation: being dead. These lines are an extended metaphor to the athlete dying,
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
Not only the words, but the figures of speech and other such elements are important to analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the entire poem, as in lines one through four, and seven through eight. The alliteration in one through four (whisky, waltzing, was) flows nicely, contrasting to the negativity of the first stanza, while seven through eight (countenance, could) sound unpleasing to the ear, emphasizing the mother’s disapproval. The imagery of the father beating time on the child’s head with his palm sounds harmful, as well as the image of the father’s bruised hands holding the child’s wrists. It portrays the dad as having an ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands, he grabs his wrists.
The first line of the last stanza “Therefore,” suggest that previous ideas of physical need and despair provide a telling prelude to the fate of the children. The following lines “their sons grow suicidally beautiful at the beginning of October…” are further telling to their destiny. As aforementioned, the phrase “suicidally beautiful” and the setting of October are indicative of a period of death and decay. Following this notion, is the line “And they gallop terribly against each other’s bodies” which literally takes the poem back to the football game, but also symbolizes the struggle of the sons. They “gallop terribly” denoting an uncontrollable rapid progression, and are doing so “against” one another as if attempting to be the hero the community dreams about. However, just as the poem begins with the setting of the stadium and ends with their struggle, their lives are ultimately determined by a cycle of poverty beginning with the idealization of a hero, failure to provide the family, and hope for the child just like the “proud fathers” in the stadium. However, the chances of escape are extremely
This stanza feels dream like, the organization of thought is loose, and word choice seems almost erratic, almost unrehearsed. The first stanza ends with a twist. The faster boy is killed by a mine and his friend, just seconds behind, witnesses the whole thing.
related to the death of the dead. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The last paragraph is a near enough repeat of the first, with the last paragraph. knight describing him on the hill by the lake, as this is where he woke up after his dream. This means the poem has completed a full circle, as does the knight.
Structure: There are 4 stanzas, each serves to reveal a different piece of information (1st stanza: town’s consensus about Richard Cory, 2nd stanza: personality, 3rd stanza: social status, 4th status: the abrupt, unforeseen ending of his life).
Perhaps Hopkins has great force for me on a personal level because he was the first poet I studied in my freshman English seminar, where my instructor, a woman from Wales, read selections of “The Wreck of the Deutchland” out loud. The line “Warm laid grave of a womb-life grey” still lilts in my memory. The effect of this line, the smoothness, derived from the soft consonants “w,” “m,” “b,” “l,” etc., combined with the long vowel sounds in “womb,” “grey,” and “grave,” leave me with the feeling of what it must sound like to be floating—and dying—under water. T...
The poet mourns the death of his loved one and wants the world to grieve with him. His wants his subjective to be objective. The first stanza links everything to noise. He wants to 'silence the piano ' for example, showing how he wants no more noise in the world. Throughout the poem, there are many imperatives. This relates back to Remember, where the poems title is included in the imperatives. The third stanza has no imperatives at all, and many antonyms. This is the poets way of saying they meant everything to him. The second stanza uses 'scribbling ' to personify a plane. The use of personification in the poem links back to Do not go gentle into that good night. The first stanza contains references to things that can be easily done like 'stop all the clocks '. The second has things that are theoretically possible but a bit harder to do. The poem seems to get less and less realistic as it goes on. The final line, 'For nothing now can ever come to any good ', is quite bleak, showing how the death of his partner has affected the poet. It gives him no good feelings
The first thing that strikes me about this poem is the structure. The poem is very ordered written with 4 lines a stanza and a total of 6 stanza’s. This looks like a professional poem created by an adult, showing experience right away. The syllables are normally 7 per line but there are exceptions to this rule as all of stanza 5 has 8 syllables a line. The first stanza and the last stanza are nearly the same apart from the last line of each differing by a word. This poem uses many poetic devices well to create a vivid picture in the readers mind. There are rhyming couplets, alliteration, repetition, rhetorical questions as well as many biblical and egotistical references to the artist and poet himself. Now we will look at the poems meanings.
The first stanza begins by stating, The children go forward . They are leaving their mothers behind, going to a place inaccessible to them. At the moment the children are on their way to school, but as they progress, they will begin to move past the achievements of their parents. Instead of becoming resentful, the mothers do all they can to ensure this progress continues. All morning the mothers have labored . They exert themselves strenuously for the benefit of their children. They put forth much time and energy at manual labor. The mothers labored in giving birth to their children, and are laboring to raise them to adulthood. They sacrifice themselves so that their children may have a future better than their own.
The theme of this poem is death and the poem is a first-person account to the experience of facing death for the first time. As he confronts death for the first time he sees how it affects those he loves. It takes the audience along on the poet’s journey to accepting his beloved little brother’s death.