09 To an Athlete Dying Young

The sonnet ‘To an Athlete Dying Young’ was written by A. E. Housman. It is about athletes who have died young and the tragedy that comes with it. Athletes who had a lot of potential which then is all gone after they have past. The poem says “chaired him shoulder high” which firstly means he is still young, but later represents the athlete in the coffin and they’re holding the coffin on their shoulder.

The sonnet has 28 lines, it has 7 quatrains. The rhyming scheme is (a,a,b,b,c,c,d,d,etc.) which is an Italian sonnet, even though it does not start as an Italian sonnet.