'Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young”\r'

'A. E. Housmans â€Å"To an suspensor last Young,” likewise known as Lyric 19 in A Shropshire Lad, holds as its master(prenominal) theme the premature death of a young jock as told from the topographic point of view of a friend fortune as pall be arr. The poem reveals the imagination that those dying at the peak of their laurels or youth are unfeignedly quite lucky. The first few readings of â€Å"To an Athlete Dying Young” provides the reader with an ground of Housmans view of death. Additional readings reveal Housmans act to convey the classical idea that youth, beauty, and ring can be preserved sole(prenominal) in death.\r\nA line-by-line analysis helps to fancy the purpose of the poem. The first stanza of the poem tells of the athletes jump for joy and his glory filled parade by dint of the town in which the crowd loves and cheers for him. As Bobby Joe Leggett defines at this point, the athlete is â€Å"carried of the shoulders of his friends after a winning move” (54). In Housmans wrangling: The time you won your town the race We chaired you through the market place; cosmos and boy stood cheering by, And home we brought you shoulder-high. (Housman 967).\r\nStanza 2 describes a much more swart procession. The athlete is being carried to his grave. In Leggetts opinion, â€Å"The parallels amidst this procession and the former triumph are carefully drawn” (54). The reader should beguile that Housman makes another reference to â€Å"shoulders” as an allusion to splice the first … … middle of paper … … oem because the athlete lived a short choppy life, yet, be it for only a moment, he lived elaborately. full treatment Cited Bache, William. â€Å"Housmans To an Athlete Dying Young. ” The Explicator, 1951. 185) Henry, Nat. â€Å"Housmans To an Athlete Dying Young. ” The Explicator, 1954. (188-189) Housman, A. E.. â€Å"To an Athlete Dying Young. ” The Bedford Introduction To Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. capital of Massachusetts: Bedford Books Of St. Martins Press, 1993. (967) Leggett, Bobby Joe. Land of Lost Content. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1970. Leggett, Bobby Joe. The Poetic artistic creation of A. E. Housman. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1978. Ricks, Christopher ed.. A. E. Housman. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968. stool S. Ward\r\n'