“TO AN ATHLETE DYING
YOUNG”
Tyler Brazeal and Olivia Barringer
INTRODUCTION
“To an Athlete Dying Young” is a poem by English poet A.E. Housman.
Basically, the poem is about an athlete who died young. A.E. Housman
tries to find a light in this tragedy by saying the athlete will never have to
experience the downfall of his popularity because he died at the height
of his career and died in fame.
TIME PERIOD/POEM STYLE
The poem is from the Victorian Era or the Modern time period, as
it was written in 1896.
"To an Athlete Dying Young" is a lyric poem. Because it praises an
athlete who died young, the poem may be further classified as an
elegy.
THEME
“People’s legacies will fade and be replaced by
successors. Rewards and recognition are short lived
and are soon forgotten when the next best thing
comes along. The only way a person can capture glory
and make it last is to die young after achieving
greatness.”
ESSAY!
 Organize it by the way the poem develops in the stanzas (each stanza could be a body
paragraph); the rise of the “athlete” (recognition) in stanzas 1-2, 3-4 is his moment in the
spotlight already fading, 5-7 is a meditation on how short lived his “life” or legacy was.
 Thesis statement: Housman, through a combination of literary devices, structure, and an
(at times) somewhat harsh and critical tone, is able to further a theme of an athlete dying
before he has a chance to see his legacy fade or be replaced by a successor.
 Topic Sentence #1 – Housman begins to develop his theme of the athlete dying before his
legacy dies in the first two stanzas, which narrate examine the rise of the athlete before
his premature death.
 Topic Sentence #2 – The third and fourth stanzas are more meditative as they analyze the
death of the athlete and how this death affects his legacy and glory.
 Topic Sentence #3 – The final three stanzas reflect on the village’s reaction to the athlete’s
premature death and how the athlete’s name has not been tarnished with the passing of
time because of this death.
ANALYSIS OF STANZAS 1 AND 2
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
ANALYSIS OF STANZAS 3 AND 4
Paraphrase
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
Glory will die faster
than the person
who earned the
glory
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Simile
Metaphor
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
Oxymoron
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.
Literary Devices
ANALYSIS OF STANZAS 5 AND 6
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
ANALYSIS OF STANZA 7
Even the dead will
admire the athlete’s
glory in life, as short
lived as it was
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
WORKS CITED
 "A. E. Housman." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.
<http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/a-e-housman>.
 Halley, Catherine. "To an Athlete Dying Young." Poetry Foundation. Poetry
Foundation. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175749>.
 "To an Athlete Dying Young." To an Athlete Dying Young. Web. 19 Jan. 2015. <
http://www.cummingsstudyguides.net/Guides3/Housman.html>.