Assignment 12

A.E. Housman: “To an Athlete Dying Young” (p. 1064-65)

Like most of Housman’s poetry, this poem is transparently clear. The meaning of “shoulder- high” ironically and obviously changes between the first and second stanzas; the cheering town of life becomes the “stiller town” of death. The third stanza is the densest. In its mildly sardonic suggestion (in the curious address “Smart lad”) that an early death has it compensations, it raises questions about the value of a life in which, inevitably, pain and infirmity outweigh joy and gratification. The final couplet employs traditional symbols–the laurel for victory and the rose for youth and beauty, the laurel even more ephemeral than the rose. The word “shady” in line 13 evokes the “shades” in Hades, and the final stanza suggests a crowd of shades–“the strengthless dead”–that reminds us of the “strength” required for athletic success and its futility in the face of mortality. Paradoxically, among the dead the garland of laurel does not wither, even though it is “briefer” than the garland of roses.