Talk:To an Athlete Dying Young

Misuse of the poem

From time to time I read of this poem being recited as a sort of eulogy at the funeral of an actual young athlete, and I am appalled every time. Is the general level of reading comprehension that low? This poem is not really about athletes who die young, but about those who don't. Housman is reflecting upon the situation of the person whose crowning achievement is reached early in his life and who then must live out the rest of his days as a sort of anticlimax. He is saying, in so many words, that it would be better for the winning pitcher at the Little League World Series to get run over by a car the next day than to spend all his remaining years in the shadow of his early accomplishment. But, of course, he doesn't really mean it. It's just his way of dramatizing his point about the comedown that the young man likely has in store. Anyone who would stand beside an actual corpse and recite this poem is saying that it was quite a good thing that the honored one checked out so early: "Smart lad, to slip betimes away from fields where glory does not stay..." Now I see here that Jim McKay actually read this poem at the funeral for the slain Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Were he and his handlers really that stupid, or could he have been conveying some sort of hidden message? FloydSmif (talk) 21:10, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Apparently poor poetry reading skills are not limited to Americans like Jim McKay and the funeral eulogists you have read about. The page's introduction notes that "...the poem gained even more popularity during World War I, as many saw it as a poignant lament for the lost generation of so many bright, young men, cut down in their prime." Many well might have seen it as that, which just shows you how little they know, or knew, as it were. I am reminded of the George Carlin observation: "Just think of how stupid the average person is, and half the people are even stupider than that." RogerReggin (talk) 21:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

"Housman is reflecting upon the situation of the person whose crowning achievement is reached early in his life" - you're dead wrong. Both of you. Smugly satisfied and absolutely wrong. The poem is quite clearly about a young man who died before the rot had a chance to set in. What part of "you will not swell the rout / of lads that wore their honours out" do you not understand? It belongs to a Victorian-era tradition that sentimentalised romantic death at an early age. You're looking for something that isn't there. 87.114.94.103 (talk) 17:37, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

mentioned in 'Pale Fire'

Nabokov's Lolita contains an allusion to the last line of the poem. Describing Lolita, the narrator mentions "her bi-iliac garland still as brief as a lad’s".

Also it's mentioned in his 'Pale fire': "when explaining that he had to keep a promise made to one of his dearest fraternity friends, a glorious young athlete whose "garland" will not, one hopes, be "briefer than a girl's"." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.118.64.51 (talk) 16:56, 3 November 2014 (UTC)

Anecdote has no place in an encyclopedia?

–Re your undo of the section (including my recent entry in same) To_an_Athlete_Dying_Young#References in other media, I wish you'd reconsider. Such sections are extremely common in Wikipedia and have never been discouraged. Please see WP:TRIVIA

As to the relevance of my entry viz "advancing knowledge of the text", the poem's inclusion in Out of Africa (film) arguably rescued it from obscurity through Meryl Streep's soulful rendition as witnessed by millions of movie-goers.Cliffewiki (talk) 17:45, 16 April 2018 (UTC) - copied from Sweetpool 50 User Talk

A poor case is made for retention. The arguement that WP:OTHER STUFF EXISTS is not a good precedent and is countered by WP:SEWAGE. It is also dishonest to say that trivia sections "have never been discouraged". The guidelines cited recommend that “Short cultural references sections should usually be entirely reworked into the main flow of the article. If a separate section for this material is maintained, the poorest approach is a list, which will attract the addition of trivia.” That is in fact exactly what happened in the past.

In addition to the above, the item was deleted because it lacked a proper reference, merely citing a statement in another Wikipedia article that was itself unreferenced. As for the statement that the poem was "arguably rescued from obscurity through Meryl Streep's soulful rendition as witnessed by millions of movie-goers", that comes under the guideline WP:No original research, also mentioned under WP:TRIVIA. I recommend reading the whole of a guideline rather than WP:CHERRYPICKING. Sweetpool50 (talk) 14:37, 17 April 2018 (UTC)