This is my most awful writing in the fifth semester. If you are agree with me, please leave a rude comment!! Ha Ha Ha, kidding!
To an Athlete Dying Young is a poem—or some might say an elegy to one’s funeral—which adopts the theme of the sudden death of a successful athlete. This poem was first published in 1896 and it rapidly gets the attention of the reader, especially, this poem reveals the addressee of the young athlete. What makes this poem interesting is the way Housman creates the tone of the sudden death less depressed, and it inclines to an elegy to someone who was close to him. This paper aims to explore the meaning and the addressee of the poem by analyzing its idiomatic expressions including the symbol, metaphor, simile, personification, and phenomenology imagery. The method of the analysis is close-reading with a comprehensive analysis on the use of metaphors and symbols with a further reading of Housman’s biography.
A Throwback to Young Athlete’s Glory
Housman clearly used imagery to depict the feeling of the athlete while he was alive in the first stanza. The imagery used by Housman is phenomenology imagery which is the derivation of Husserl’s philosophy that mainly dicusses about someone’s reaction of something depending on one’s consciousness in that time. The reaction may be subjective – it depends on one’s judgement or opinion of something (Farina, 2014). Based on this poem, it is found that Housman’s intention was to make the reader feel terrifyingly joy in each stanza. This was a peculiar reaction of someone knowing his colleague was dead prematurely. In the poetry, Housman’s reaction towards the athlete was in his glory. The word chaired in the second line was equal to the word ‘carried the athlete’ after he won the competition. Probably, the athlete was known as that town’s honorary so after the athlete won that town race, he was brought paraded by the townsmen (line 3-4). This also implied that all of the townsmen did recognize him as a winner, so when the athlete died young, the townsmen (line 5), chaired the athlete to the cemetery or it was being symbolized as the road (line 6), where all runners should go – to finally face their death and being burried down just like the poor young athlete.
However, Housman exchanged the structure of the fourth and sixth sentences to mark out that the situation was changed as well as the tone of the poetry. The first stanza tends to have a cheerful tone, in contrast to the second stanza that tends to have somber mood. The word set you at your threshold down in the seventh line implied that the dead body of that poor athlete was about to be burried by the townsmen because it was the athlete’s death ceremony. Therefore, Housman mentioned the athlete as a new resident of a stiller town in the eighth line which meant the cemetery. Cemetery tends to have a quiet surrounding, so Housman used this metaphor to stated that the athlete was in a forever peace after his death finally approached.
In the third stanza, a paradox was found in line 9. The poor deceased athlete that should die betimes away. This inferred that the young man, unfortunately, died when he was on top of his career. Housman impersonate the athlete as laurel, which was a type of flowers symbolized as victory (line 11). The word withers quicker than rose was a simile to explain that laurel, as depicted in the poem, withers sooner than rose did. These lines also had an implicit meaning which depicted the poor young athlete that should died betimes away—faster—than other athlete in the town. The young athlete here was symbolized as the laurel which both of them have similar nature; as a symbol of victory, on the other hand, other runners were the rose. In the line 11, it was mentioned that that town where the young athlete lived probably would not recognize his succession long, however, after the premature death of young athlete, people would respect his death, as represented as the word rose. Housman did not pen out the reason why the athlete dies soon, probably being killed or because of suffered from deadly disease.
The Advantages of Being in a Sudden Death
The fourth stanza was started with a metaphorical line. Eyes the shady night has shut referred to a statement of someone’s life which had come to an end. However, Housman wrote this stanza as if he implicitly had an opinion that it was better for the young athlete to die soon rather than to see his record cut – being forgotten after the young athlete’s retirement. It was common for athlete to be praised of when he was an athlete, but when it comes to be on his shelf, the athlete would be forgotten by people who praised him in the first place. Housman also gave a metaphorical meaning of earth has stopped the ears (line 16). That is to say that the athlete, after his death, would not hear any sound and all he would hear after his death was only silence (line 15). The sound of townsmen cheering to the athlete would not be heard because he was now in a different place. The athlete should not worry of his opponent as well, and also he should not worry that he will lose or win or being forgotten because now he was dead (line 17 – 19).
The fifth stanza had more complex elaborated explanation about what’s good about die soon. The other young athlete or mentioned here as lads, had to strieve for his sustainable glory by finding more triumphs in terms of getting more crowds as mentioned in the line 21-23. Also, those other young athletes whom did not die soon should experience losing their skill and aged as well as their name died before the man (line 24). It was a metaphor for the disappearance of their glory when they are aged and finally lose their ability to run as athlete.
Housman wanted to elaborate the reason why it is good for the young athlete to die soon rather than aged. The aged athlete would feel oppressed by the audience because he will slowly lose his athletic skill, and in the end, being replaced by the other younger athletes. This also showed the tone of pessimistic life to the young athlete.
An Elegy to Housman’s Athlete
If we take a deeper look, we could infer that this poetry is an elegy in a funeral process. Housman clearly wanted to give a roller-coaster feeling by reading this poem. The first until the third stanza stood for commemorating the deceased athlete’s life, the fourth until the fifth stanza were stated in conjunction with the lowering the tomb process while the last two stanzas were said when the coffin had successfully buried.
The first line on the sixth stanza stated that in the burial process, the deceased athlete may not hear any echoes which refers to glory and succession anymore. This condition was also an alteration as the coffin was about to be burried and this could be a symbol of nothingness one will have when it comes to one’s death. The next line could be interpreted as an occurrence when the athlete passed the sill of shade or we might interpret it as a gateway from land to death which the poor athlete should pass. However, Housman was intended to say that the townsmen whom attended the funeral to recall the glory of the deceased young athlete as the coffin was about to be burried, as represented in the last two lines in the sixth stanza. The metaphorical word of glory, on the last stanza, was laurel and garland. These two things were the symbol of victory or succession, so did the young deceased athlete. However, the laurel the athlete had was so fresh because he was just winning from the competition which implied that his position was on top of everything in that town. This also strenghten the reason of his death may be caused by a sudden reason.
Housman also made a comparison between a laurel and garland. Although both of them were a symbol of victory, Housman described that the poor young athlete’s laurel was too soon to decompose rather than a child-made garland. However, by this occurrence, the young deceased athlete will be known forever and his victory will remained in every townsmen’s mind, as stated by the word unwithered on its curls (line 27).
Talking about the situation of this poem, Housman implicitly described that he himself were one of townsmen who praised that young athlete when he was alive. He was also included in the mourners who sent the young athlete to the funeral. For Housman was the one who said the elegy in the poem, he must knew the young athlete personally. Housman, peculiarly, described the young athlete’s death as if it was the best decision rather than being forgotten. Housman really had a positive way of thinking about the death – something that we could not avoid. He even mentioned some benefits of being in a premature death, exclusively, for the young athlete. Then the question would be, who was the poor young athlete?
According to White’s dissertation (1954), A. E. Housman never really had a crush on any woman. Some biographers and critics also stated that Housman was a homosexual. Most of his poem was about his crush including this poem. It was Moses Jackson, Housman’s roomate, that supposed to be the true love of Housman. They became roommates when they both were studying in Oxford. It was also mentioned that Housman once expressed his feeling to Jackson, however, Jackson refused him. Homosexual in Housman’s era was still uncommon for some people, and soon after that Jackson moved to live together with his girlfriend. According to Washington Post article (1980), brother of Moses was soon be Housman’s lover. Aldabert, Moses’s brother, was also an athlete and he experienced a premature death. Housman probably got the idea of writing this elegy as a poetry based on his bereavement. One ever mentioned that Housman wrote this to his close friend. In some occurrence, Housman refused to be interviewed of this poetry and only gave such explanation about this poetry. Regardless of his homosexuality, the addressee of this poem had a very pathetic way to die. Also, Housman’s intention while creating this poem was to implicitly utter his fondness of someone, even after this poor athlete premature death happened.
Conclusion
To an Athlete Dying Young was a tragic poem which had a contradiction in the tone. It had a strong passion in each lines, and Housman had a very positive viewpoint about being in sudden death as well. This poem had a very ulterior meaning represented by the use of idiomatic expressions to intend some hidden meaning. The word chosement was brilliant – it lead the readers to focus on the young athlete’s victory, not to the young athlete’s cause of death. A further study about A Shropshire Lad is recommended to explore more about Housman’s biography since he would not want to explain more about his works in that book.
References
Housman, A. E. (1896). A Shropshire Lad “To an Athlete Dying Young”. England.
Housman, A. E. (2007). “To an Athlete Dying Young” Literature: The Human Experience. Ed. Richard Abcaria and Marvin Klotz. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
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