Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young”

A. E. Housmans To an Athlete dying Young, also known as Lyric XIX in A Shropshire Lad, holds as its main theme the premature death of a young jockstrap as told from the point of view of a friend serving as go bad bearer. The poem reveals the concept that those dying at the peak of their glory or youth are very quite lucky. The first few readings of To an Athlete Dying Young provides the reader with an understanding of Housmans view of death. additive readings reveal Housmans attempt to convey the classical idea that youth, beauty, and glory can be preserved whole in death.A line-by-line analysis helps to determine the purpose of the poem. The first stanza of the poem tells of the athletes triumph and his glory alter parade through the town in which the crowd loves and cheers for him. As Bobby Joe Leggett defines at this point, the athlete is carried of the shoulders of his friends after a winning race (54). In Housmans words The time you won your town the race We chaired you t hrough the marketplace place Man and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. (Housman 967).Stanza two describes a much more gloomy procession. The athlete is being carried to his grave. In Leggetts opinion, The parallels between this procession and the former triumph are carefully cadaverous (54). The reader should see that Housman makes another reference to shoulders as an allusion to connect the first middle of paper oem because the athlete lived a short choppy life, yet, be it for only a moment, he lived elaborately. Works Cited Bache, William. Housmans To an Athlete Dying Young. The Explicator, 1951. 185) Henry, Nat. Housmans To an Athlete Dying Young. The Explicator, 1954. (188-189) Housman, A. E.. To an Athlete Dying Young. The Bedford Introduction To Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston Bedford Books Of St. Martins Press, 1993. (967) Leggett, Bobby Joe. Land of Lost Content. Knoxville University of Tennessee Press, 1970. Leggett, Bobby Joe. Th e Poetic artistic production of A. E. Housman. Lincoln University of Nebraska Press, 1978. Ricks, Christopher ed.. A. E. Housman. Englewood Cliffs Prentice Hall, 1968. John S. Ward