Ae Housmanto An Athelete Dying Young
Submitted by pamyfamy on 06/30/2008 05:21 PM
- Category: Sports
- Words: 281
- Pages: 2
- Views: 61
- Popularity Rank: 377
Ae Housmanto An Athelete Dying Young
"To an Athlete Dying Young" is the poem you can see Isak Dineson [Meryl Streep] reading at the side of Denys Finch Hatten's [Robert Redford's] grave in "Out of Africa," a movie which treats the love affair Baroness Karen Blixen had with Africa and with Finch Hatten. Blixen's nom de plume was Isak Dineson.
A. E. Housman sets up the situation where someone (perhaps a pallbearer) who knew a now-dead young athlete talks about how he won a race. The whole poem is apostrophe--the figure of speech wherein something or someone which/who cannot respond. Apostrophe is strongly tied to personification, and here we come to grips that the body in the ground is no longer a person. The townspeople had carried the young winner on their shoulders, and they are carrying him again. The people who cheered him on, now are praying for him. Perrine felt that "stiller" was an understatement which paralleled the cheering town.
Ironically, the narrator says the young athlete was smart to die at the peak of his ability.[He will never fade from glory.] The irony is complex, involving the discrepancy between what would be expected for a young athlete and what has actually been his lot in life. The laurel has been a symbol of victory since the time of the early Greeks, and roses are traditional for youthful beauty.
The edge of the tomb is the "sill of shade," alluding both to the darkness of the tomb and to the ghosts [shades] of Hades.
Housman is known for his poetry which treats death, and he takes a wry look at how one king averted an early death in "Terence, this is stupid stuff."
You must Login to view the entire paper.
If you are not a member yet, Sign Up for free!
