To an Athlete Dying Young

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1896

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

Housman organizes his poem into seven quatrains or stanzas of four lines. Each stanza consists of one sentence and follows an AABB rhyme scheme. The deliberateness of the form matches the considered tone of the poem. Housman purposefully uses irony to highlight the pressures of fame and the sadness of dying young. The speaker already knows the outcome of the athlete, and the form, too, is predetermined.

For meter, Housman uses tetrameter or four sets of unstressed, stressed syllables. In Line 1, the reader doesn’t stress “[t]he,” they stress “time,” they don’t stress “you,” but they stress “won,” and so on. The tetrameter creates a purposeful and somewhat slow place that links to the tragic irony and melancholy in the poem. The ups and downs of the meter reflect the ups and downs of life and the athlete, who dies with his glory intact but dies nonetheless and winds up in a “low lintel” (Line 23) or coffin.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the arrangement of words with the same first letter or similar sounds. The poet puts these words close together, and they make a pleasant melody. Housman uses alliteration frequently. In Line 1, four of the eight words start with “t,” and there’s another moment of alliteration with “you” and “your.” Line 5 features alliteration with “road” and “runners,” and in Line 7, “you” and “your” reappears.

Stanza 6 contains a fair amount of alliteration with “[s]o set” (Line 21), “fleet foot” (Line 22), “sill of shade” (Line 22), “to the low lintel up” (Line 23), and “still-defended challenge-cup” (Line 24). The constant presence of alliteration might make the stanza somewhat puzzling. It seems as if Housman’s focus is on finding words that sound alike or have the same first letter. His primary concern isn’t presenting a clear image.

The stress on alliteration connects to the Aesthetic Movement and the belief that a person could make art to make art and not worry about social commentary or communicating a specific idea. While Housman’s poem articulates cutting points about youth, death, fame, and beauty, at times, it feels like he puts the craft of poetry ahead of cultural criticism, and Stanza 6 is one such moment. The alliteration is artful and sounds nice, but it arguably obscures what’s happening to the athlete.

Repetition

Repetition is when the poet repeats words or phrases to emphasize a theme or idea. To start his poem, Housman repeats a similar scene to illustrate the confluence between the athlete’s accomplishments and death. In Stanza 1, the townspeople celebrate the athlete and carry him “shoulder-high” (Line 4) because he won the town race. In Stanza 2, the townspeople come together to honor the athlete’s death. Once again, they bring the athlete home “[s]houlder-high” (Line 6). The repetition reinforces the idea that the athlete died early and left life on a high note. In both scenes, the townspeople bestow the athlete with adulation.

The repetition of “you” stresses the intimacy of the poem. The personal pronoun suggests a close relationship between the speaker and the athlete, although the speaker doesn’t clarify who he is, nor does he divulge much about the athlete. The frequency of “you” turns the work into a letter or an epistolary poem. It can make the reader feel as if they’re viewing a private correspondence, which lends credence to the idea that the poem relates to what happened between Housman and Moses. The reader shouldn't know too much about the men because such information could expose them to persecution.