Similarities Between After Great Pain And To An Athlete Dying Young
Shaun Duetsch
Ms. Bernard
ENG 102-02
3 April 23
The Complexity of Loss
There are few constants in life, one of them is the inevitability of death. One interesting part of that inevitability, surprisingly, is not related to the very person who is dying. It is that the people around the dead have to adjust to their absence. In the poems After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes and To an Athlete Dying Young this adjustment is portrayed. They interestingly display two different perspectives but despite that difference they do not contradict each other. Both use symbolism to convey their themes relating to loss. In To an Athlete Dying Young the author uses an interesting parallel that perfectly conveys the reality of loss and pulls on the heartstrings
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A. E. Housman’s To an Athlete Dying Young theme is a positive interpretation of death. Rather than dwelling on the pain that death brings it tells of how the athlete will have died undefeated and at the peak of his career(Housman 18). Emily Dickinson’s After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes theme is from seemingly the internal perspective of someone who is experiencing grief, it does not have the same feeling of looking on the bright side that Housman’s poem does, it is as negative as you would expect a poem of this topic to typically be. Although it is negative, Dickinson’s poem displays the reality of grieving that can be summarized for now with one line from it: “First–Chill–then Stupor– then the letting go –”(Dickinson 13). Although this quote may not make sense to someone who has not read the poem it will be explained …show more content…
"Rhetorics of Loss: Values of Absence and Affect in Frost and Dickinson." Poetry Criticism, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 173, Gale, 2016. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420120657/LitRC?u=lom_stclaircocc&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=b2359340. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023. Originally published in Literature, Rhetoric and Values, edited by Shelley Hulan, et al., Cambridge Scholars, 2012, pp. 13-28.
"Overview: 'To an Athlete Dying Young'." Poetry for Students, edited by Kristen A. Dorsch, vol. 61, Gale, 2019. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1430009010/LitRC?u=lom_stclaircocc&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=ed111445. Accessed 28 Mar. 2023.
Housman, A.E. . “To an Athlete Dying Young” Literature: The Human Experience. Abcarian, Richard, Marvin Klotz, and Samuel Cohen. 13th ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s 2019 1127.
Dickinson, Emily. “After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes” Literature: The Human Experience. Abcarian, Richard, Marvin Klotz, and Samuel Cohen. 13th ed. Bedford/St. Martin’s 2019
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