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

Authors

  • Govand Diyar Tayeb Department of English, Nawroz University, Duhok, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25007/ajnu.v12n3a1477

Abstract

Abstract

Both To an Athlete Dying Young and Anthem for Doomed Youth poems have relative significance in literature. To find out what is death, there must be no distance between death and the individual who has to understand the significance of death and live with it while being fairly alert. That thing called death is the end of everything that the human  knows; i.e. body, mind, work, and ambitions which all have an end  when death occurs.

This paper is an attempt to compere the theme of death in two poems, namely A E Housman’s To an athlete dying young which manifests 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 sufferings. To an athlete dying young portrays death as glory and eternal adulation. In comparison, Anthem for the Doomed Youth portrays death as horrible  not glorious. Both poems were written in the context of a sensitive and very emotional phenomenon, namely death which is seen as a distinguishing phenomenon for both authors. There are contrasting views of the concept of death as different philosophers have come up with different points of view in this respect. On this basis, the current study considers the philosophical understanding of death by comparing the different philosophers views for a better and happy life.

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References

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Published

2023-06-21

How to Cite

Diyar Tayeb, G. (2023). The Concept of Death in "To an Athlete Dying Young and Anthem for Doomed Youth". Academic Journal of Nawroz University, 12(3), 74–78. https://doi.org/10.25007/ajnu.v12n3a1477

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 3 (2023)

Section

Articles

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