Poetry analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Poetry analysis - Essay Exampleot return his affections, the early death of his mother and the death of a second mortal close to him leading to the development of A Shropshire Lad, a collection of sixty-three poems addressing the themes of unrequited love, the oblivion of death, and idealized military life that carefully navigated slightly any issues of homosexuality. In addition, he is surprisingly consistent in his writing, showing nearly identical themes, forms and language usage in Last Poems as were apply in A Shropshire Lad. However, his open investigations of the mysteries of death and the dual nature of humankind have earned him acknowledgment as a precursor to the development of advanced poetry (A.E. Housman, 2006). These attitudes about death can be most understood as they are expressed in the poems To An Athlete Dying Young, When I Was peerless and Twenty, With Rue My Heart is Laden and Is My Team Ploughing?In To An Athlete Dying Young, Housman demonstrates a sensitiv e honor for the man who dies in his prime, invoking a powerful sense of regretful comprehension regarding the wisdom of dying young. He begins the poem with a nostalgic look back at the happy force carrying the star athlete around on a chair, everyone celebrating and having a good time. This nostalgia is established by the wistful The time you won (1) that immediately invokes a obscure of memory around the edges of the scene described. The heros way is carefully invoked in the lines Man and boy stood cheering by, / And home we brought you shoulder-high (3-4) to be carefully juxtaposed against the same phrase in the second stanza Shoulder-high we bring you home, / And set you at your threshold down (6-7). With only this slight change in language, Housman makes it clear that this is no longer a cheering crowd, they are not celebrating and, by distinguishing his friend as Townsman of a stiller town (8), he makes it obvious that this is a