Athlete Dying Young

The elegy “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman follows the speaker as he mourns the death of a highly celebrated, young athlete. Housman asserts for one to achieve eternal greatness in the minds of his admirers he must die closely after reaching his peak performance or face the prospect of having is glory fade. Housman employs a distant, observant tone almost as if the poem’s speaker is a close friend or confidant of the athlete. The speaker chooses to glorify the young athlete’s death, focusing on the idea that dying in his prime he will remain remembered and admired. The height and bliss of glory is contrasted with the bitterness of death, supporting the belief that it is more important for the athlete to die young and be remembered
than live longer and be forgotten. The speaker begins by recollecting the time the athlete achieved one of his greatest feats by coming first in a race and the praise he received from his town in return. In these first four lines, Housman depicts the glory which an athlete receives from his accomplishments. He recreates the image of the athletes win: “We chaired you through the market place/…/ And home we brought you shoulder-high.” The townspeople cheered for the young athlete and carried him home. This stanza illuminates the praise society treats high achieving athletes with. The speaker is stating that glory does not simply come from an athletes achievements, but the celebratory reactions society has to those achievements. As he transitions to the second stanza, the speaker reveals that the runner is already dead and this story is simply a memory. Housman writes “Shoulder-high we bring you home/ And set you at your threshold down.” The phrases “shoulder-high” and “your threshold” create an air of respect demonstrating that the townspeople are holding the athlete on a pedestal. However, in this case the seventh line represents the burial of the dead runner, his casket is slowly lowered into the grave. In the last line of the stanza the speaker calls the athlete a “Townsman of a stiller town” declaring that while the athlete won a race which resulted in stardom for both him and his town, he is now traveling the inevitable road to his grave. Juxtaposes the still, quiet cemetery with the loud, cheering crowds who attended the athlete’s race. At the beginning of the poem the speaker recalls the athlete’s triumph and the glory it was coupled with.
The third stanza explains that glory fades and eventually dies, as well as those who were lucky enough to have attained it. With the lines “Smart lad, to slip betimes away/ From fields where glory does not stay” the speaker implies that the athlete was wise to die young because his fame was left intact. The speaker chooses to focus on the brighter aspects of the athlete’s death by touching on how he was undefeated at the time of his demise. Perhaps if the athlete had lived longer, he would have been beaten and disappointed his admirers. The speaker then goes on with the simile “early…the laurel grows/ it withers quicker than a rose.” The laurel, used in ancient Greece to crown Olympic championship athletes, is a symbol of victory. The athlete is fortunate to have passed while the laurel was still situated on his head, rather than after it was taken by another or forgotten. In the next stanza the speaker continues to highlight the positive aspects of the athlete’s early death. As the “shady night” or death has shut the athlete’s eyes, he will not be there to see his records be broken and feel the disappointment of his defeat. The speaker’s use of the oxymoron “silence sounds” helps to emphasize the idea that since the athlete has passed the silence will not bother him, but if he had lived the loss of praise due to defeat would have crushed his spirits and seemed much more
prominent. In the fifth stanza the speaker tells the athlete that his early death has fortunately prevented him from joining the ranks of all the athletes who lived beyond the time of their glory. The athlete’s early demise has allowed him to avoid the fate of those who “the renown outran;” his glory was still prominent at the time of his death and he was still greatly admired by his townsmen.
The speaker then begins his final words to the departed athlete, he encourages the boy