To An Athlete Dying Young Summary

The poem I am going to analyze is To an Athlete Dying Young by A.E Housman, this poem is written about a young athletic male that died so young. His town as a champion that won a race for this hometown remembers this young athlete. The figure of speech in this poem is an apostrophe because “ an absent character or a personified force or object is addressed directly, as if it were present or could comprehend” (Kriszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 395) and in this poem the dead athlete is being used.

The metaphor that is being used is “eyes the shady night has shut” (Kriszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 408) is related to death at night and is a “ compression equating two things” (Kriszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 408). Also in Housman poem he mentions how a rose fades away fast, the rose in the story I would say is symbolizing his death and could also be symbolizing the love people had for him and also the respect.

The poem is an elegy, because Housman is mourning his death. Housman poem seems like he is talking to the dead athlete, as if he is still living. The tone would be sadness,

Housman uses several of them, on line one and two he uses race and pace, on the third line and fourth line he uses by and high. Using rhyme in a poem also helps create rhythm in a poem.

Controlled number of characters in a story and “showing their reactions to events.” (Kriszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 94) is considered a short story. In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, the story is a round character because the character that is Emily in this story does not do well with changes. I would also say the town would be part of the round characters, they too have to deal with change. Emily rose was a young privileged woman from the south who just lost her father. She did not deal with her fathers’ death very well, to where she refused to burry her father until the town took