Housman

’s “To An Athlete Dying Young” Essay, Research Paper

Housman’s “To An Athlete Dying Young”

John S. Ward

Dr. Larry Brunner

A. E. Housman’s “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 athlete

as told from the point of view of a friend serving as pall bearer. The poem

reveals the concept that those dying at the peak of their glory or youth are

really quite lucky. The first few readings of “To an Athlete Dying Young”

provides the reader with an understanding of Housman’s view of death.

Additional readings reveal Housman’s attempt to convey the classical idea that

youth, beauty, and glory can be preserved only in death.

A line-by-line analysis helps to determine the purpose of the poem. The

first stanza of the poem tells of the athlete’s triumph and his glory filled

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 Housman’s words:

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. (Housman 967).

Stanza two describes a much more somber procession. The athlete is being carried

to his grave. In Leggett’s opinion, “The parallels between this procession and

the former triumph are carefully drawn” (54). The reader should see that

Housman makes another reference to “shoulders” as an allusion to connect the

first two stanzas:

Today, the road all runners come,

Shoulder high we bring you home,

And set you at the threshold down,

Townsman of a stiller town. (967)

In stanza three Housman describes the laurel growing “early” yet dying “quicker

than a rose.” (967) This parallels “the ’smart lad’ who chose to ’slip betimes

away’ at the height of his fame” (Explicator 188). Leggett’s implication of

this parallel is “that death, too is a victory” (54). He should consider

himself lucky that he died in his prime and will not out live his fame. Housman

says:

Eyes the shady night has shut

Cannot see the record cut,

And silence sounds no worse than cheers

After earth has stopped the ears. (967)

Leggett feels that “death in the poem becomes the agent by which the process of

change is halted” (54). In the next stanza symbolism is used as the physical

world is in Leggett’s terms, “The field where glories do not stay” (54). “Fame

and beauty are represented by a rose and the laurel, which are both subject to

decay,” Leggett explains (54). The athlete dying is described here by Housman:

And round that early-laurelled head

Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,

And find unwithered on its curls

The garland briefer than a girls. (967)

Any biography read on Housman should reveal that he was an big student of

Latin, a very dense language in which much meaning can be condensed into a small

word. F. W. Batesman states, “He edited volumes of poetry for the poets

Juvenile and Lucan” (Ricks 144). Housman tried to write in the same form as the

poets who he also edited by employing “a concentration of monosyllables to

provide an English equivalent to the verbal density that Latin possessed ready-

made in its system of inflection” (144). However, this was not always

employable. Housman uses condensed, and choppy words to express his ideas, an

obvious imitation of the Latin poets. A good example is that barely a word

contained in “To an Athlete Dying Young” consists of more than two syllables.

Because of Latin emulation, many hold Housmans’ works to be too easy. As

Batesman notices, “English monosyllables, on the other hand, because of their

familiarity and trivial associations, tend to vulgarize and sentimentize

whatever experience they are trying to describe” (144). Housman’s attempt to

reproduce a Latin-patterned verse posts the problem Dr. Samuel Johnson referred

to in his “Life of Dryden”:

Words too familiar or too remote defeat the

purpose of a poet. From sound which we hear on

small or coarse occasions we do not easily receive

strong impressions or delightful images; and words

to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they

occur, draw attention on themselves which they

should transmit to things. (145)

As well as old time structure, Housman takes advantage of many old time

ideas and concepts in his writings. He conveys the classic idea that beauty,

glory, and all things that are held in esteem soon outlive that fame which they

once possessed in “To an Athlete Dying Young.” So, in the premature death, the

athlete is spared the sorrow of seeing his records be broken and him losing his

talent. He will never outlive his moment in glory. He will always be

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