Page 195 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

“To an Athlete Dying Young”
by A.E. Housman, pages 75-76

Vocabulary
threshold – doorway
rout – to poke
lintel – door frame

1. What is posited as eternal in Housman's poem?

2. The poem’s first two stanzas are set in the same place but at two very different times. Why
is the athlete being honored in the first and second paragraphs?

3. The image of a wilting laurel wreath in the third stanza is recalled later in the poem’s
concluding lines. What does the speaker intend for the laurel to symbolize in the two
usages?

4. The repetition of the ‘o’ sound in “hold” and “low” is an example of what literary and
poetic device?

5. How does the author feel the young athlete will benefit from dying young? Explain your
answer.

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