The Concept of Death in "To an Athlete Dying Young and Anthem for Doomed Youth"

الملخص

This article is an attempt to compare the theme of death in two poems, namely A E Housman’s To an Athlete Dying Young, which portrays the comfort of death through its simple style and views death as celebrating the release from the difficulties of life, and Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth, which presents the primary theme of war as horror and pity and focuses on the horror of young men’s death. Anthem specifies happiness and joy attached to Doom youth and expresses great sorrow and that war brings suffering. To an athlete dying young portrays death as glory and eternal admiration. In comparison, Anthem for the Doomed Youth portrays death as horrible, not glorious. There are contrasting views of death as different philosophers have come up with different points of view in this respect. On this basis, the current essay considers the philosophical understanding of death by comparing the different poets’ views toward the concept.