NON-AFRICAN POETRY How effective is Housman's use of Imagery in "To An Athlete Dying Young?".

Answer Details

A. E. Housman's "To an Athlete Dying Young" mourns a young sportsman who dies at the height of his fame. Housman's imagery is highly effective because it fuses the images of triumph and death, using the language of athletic victory to explore the idea that dying young preserves glory that life would otherwise fade.

Images of triumph and celebration

• The poem opens with the athlete's victory: the townsfoolk "chaired you through the market-place," carrying him shoulder-high in triumph. This image of celebration establishes the height of his fame.
• The recurring image of the "race" and the runner frames the athlete's whole life as a contest, making his early death a kind of final, well-timed finish.

The central paradox: the road to the grave

• Housman brilliantly echoes the victory procession with the funeral procession: "Shoulder-high we bring you home, / And set you at your threshold down." The same image of being carried now marks his burial. The parallel is the poem's most effective stroke.
• The "threshold" and the "still" town of death present the grave as a new, quiet home.

Images of the fading laurel

• The laurel, symbol of victory, is central: "the laurel grows / And withers quicker than the rose." This vivid image warns that glory is short-lived, and so dying young spares the athlete the pain of seeing his fame decay.
• The contrast between the enduring laurel on the dead brow and the withering laurel of the living makes the abstract idea concrete and memorable.

Images of darkness, night and the shady runners

• Night, the "shady night," and the closing of the eyes present death gently, as rest rather than horror.
• The final image of "the garland briefer than a girl's" and the dead athlete crowned with an "unwithered" laurel among the "strengthless dead" leaves a haunting picture of preserved, eternal glory.

Effectiveness. Housman's imagery is effective because it is unified and paradoxical: images of running, victory, laurels and processions are turned to serve a meditation on death. By clothing a grim theme in the bright language of sport, he makes the consolation, that early death fixes glory forever, both persuasive and poignant.