What are the poetic elements in "To an Athlete Dying Young" by A. E. Housman?

One of the tragic fates in life is the death of young
person in the prime of his life.  Most people want to live a long life and would not
wish a premature death on anyone.  Yet, this is the impetus of the poem “To an Athlete
Dying Young” by A. E. Housman.  The poet puts a different slant on dying too
young.

Literary
Elements

The
setting of the poem is the funeral of a young runner who
won a championship which pleased the entire town.

The
narration is first person with one of the dead young man’s
friends as the speaker.

The theme
of the poem is the death of the speaker’s reflection on the young
athlete’s death serving a positive purpose. 

The
tone initially seems sad and mourning but as the poem
progresses, it becomes celebratory for the early death of the
boy.

Figurative
language-

Metaphor-

• “the
  road all runners come…” This is the road to the
  cemetery.


• “Townsman of a stiller town.” The young athlete
  is now a member of the graveyard or
  cemetery.

Simile-

“It
withers quicker than a rose.” This compares the life of the laurel plant to the life of
the rose.

Poetic
Devices

Alliteration-
the repetition of consonants

• “Today, the
  road all runners
  come…”


• ‘Townsman of a
  stiller
  town…”


• “Smart
  lad, to slip betimes
  away…”

The purpose of alliteration is to create
a consistent pattern that catches the mind's eye and focuses
attention.

Allusion-a reference to other
piece of literature or mythological
reference

And round that
early-laurelled head

From
Greek history, when the champion of a race or sporting event was crowned, the laurel
wreath was the crown that was
used.

Personification-giving
an inanimate object or abstract idea human qualities

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“Eyes the shady night has shut”-The night does
not have the ability to shut anything

“After earth has
stopped the ears”-The earth cannot stop the
ears.

Apostrophe-the
direct address of an inanimate object, absent person, or
concept

The
time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the
market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering
by,

And home we brought you
shoulder-high.

Form

This
is a narrative poem.  It has seven quatrains which follow a set rhyme scheme.  The
pattern is AABB. The quatrain divides into two couplets that provide a present and
future or past meaning. In addition, each quatrain is one lone sentence.   Each line has
eight syllables which when read aloud makes it feel like the pace of a
runner. 

Summary

The
narrator addresses the boy in these lines and throughout the poem as though he is still
alive. He reminisces about the boy’s life, reassuring him that it is better to die
young. The narrator speaks to the young man who has died.  He reminds him of the race
that he won and how the entire town celebrated his victory.  Today, he is going down the
path that all runners run.  The men are putting him to rest in the
graveyard. 

The glory of an athlete does not last forever. 
Most of the time, this success fades faster than it comes.  Now that he has died, he
cannot lose that fame.  That is how he will always be remembered because the glory
achieved can be more short-lived than the youth’s life. He feels the young athlete
deserves compliments because by dying early he has escaped the possible unhappiness of
witnessing his athletic records being broken by some other athlete in the
future.