Is My Team Plowing by A.E. Housman Essay

David Eagleman’s Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives delivers an assortment of theories about what the human being might experience after passing away. The book ranges from terrifying, pessimistic likelihoods to uplifting and humorous perspectives presented in less than 4 pages each. The variety of possibilities about life after death presented prompts fear or optimism. Considering that the book is not tied or centered to a religion, some of the tales suggest that a God exists while others do not necessarily include a creator of life, instead they are situations that humans might face after passing away. Therefore, everyone’s spiritual connection or logical connection is unique and how each person depicts their destined fates differs.

I think that the moral of this poem is that life is precious, and that life should never be taken for granted. I think this is because the whole poem is comparisons between life and death, and because she says that the people who have passed away would do anything possible to come back to life, even under the worst conditions, to be loved, to love, and to be with the people they

Billy Collins is considered one of the most popular poets in America. He is an accomplished writer; he has twenty-two poetry books published and was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003. In Collins’s 1991 poetry collection Questions about Angels, the poem “The Afterlife” describes the fantasies people have towards the afterlife that many have when alive. It addresses a variety of beliefs people have towards the afterlife: belief in reincarnation, those who find themselves “in a big air-conditioned room full of food and chorus girls,” and more (line 17). Collins uses imagery in the poem to reach and speak to the readers of the poem. The afterlife is considered a touchy subject in most societies conversely, Collins deflates the unease with his satirical yet harmless nevertheless ending the poem in a serious, melancholic tone.

The relationship between the wife and husband is still alive. Through the description of the poem we see that the wife does not see her husband as a dead body. She treats her husband’s body as something alive that feels every touch. In the middle of the first stanza, phrases like, “She took her time”, “She washed each finger”, and “Cleaning underneath

beloved dies. Throughout the poem, the speaker describes the hurt and sorrow that he is feeling

Alternatively we can determine that these affect everyone’s lives similarly. As all stanzas without dependence on matter begin and end in this conclusive manner. The bystanders in the poem can be seen as a symbol for humanity as a whole and their response to death. Their ordinary and individual lives are affected by death in the same way through projecting grief towards the victim but moreover focusing on ‘their own distress’. The idea that death is experienced by everyone is proven in the statement ‘all streets in time are visited’. He therefore concludes that we are all impacted by death, it is ‘all we are’, the one thing we all share in common. His realistic view of death shows his acceptance of the subject. In an alternate view we could argue he sees death optimistically. His collective nouns ‘all we are’, ‘all we do’ show a universal

In Thomas Gunn’s “Memory Unsettled”, the main speaker visits a dying friend in a hospital bed. The poem is delivered in second person which indicates the reader will be pushed to feel personally involved with the poet’s characters. By stating “Your” (76. 1) the poet allows the reader to vividly imagine the pain such character may be feeling. As the visitor intends to comfort his dying friend the reader acknowledges a bittersweet moment, by inferring the “pain” has not “ended” (76. 1-4). By depicting positive characteristics of a legitimate friend through word choice and phrases, as well as using rhyme scheme to show the symbolic meaning of sticking together, the poet establishes a sorrowful yet optimistic mood about dying.

When so much of one’s life is left up to chance, it is nice to know that one can find certainty in death. Whereas life can be moulded to perfection and death is a guarantee, there is no way to tell what one will face following death. There are millions of different cultures, religions, and individual beliefs pertaining to the afterlife, but a definitive answer will never be known. The works of Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson express two very unique interpretations of death and what follows. Both Whitman’s and Dickinson’s views of death include an idea of an afterlife, or of a continuation of the soul post death, but where Whitman welcomes the idea of demise without a trace of fear and his overall view of death is more mystical, Dickinson has a negative view of death and, at times, questions the possibility of an afterlife entirely.

A lot of us have asked ourselves the question what happens after death. After we ask this question to ourselves we don’t really go much into depth about the question we simply ignore it and go with our daily routines. Roach Mary, a scientist, says, “we have all wondered if there is an afterlife, but only a few are brave – or foolish – enough to try and find out.” There are many theories and ideas on what happens after death, some backed up with research and data and some are just plain silly. After researching many ideas, I came upon 3 ideas that caught my attention. One of these is published by THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, it is a Philosophical series by Sylvia Hart Write. The other is an article by scientist Mary Roach. Lastly The 21 grams Theory by Dr. Duncan MacDougall. These 3 articles share similarities and differences, like one is more spiritual than the other and one is more scientific. After analyzing them and reading these articles profoundly I saw which were the “silly” articles and which article made the most sense and was backed up with evidence and research. This great question has created a large amount of curiosity in many scientists. Adam Withnall from independent.co.uk states, “It’s a question that has exercised humanities finest minds since those humans have been around to have them – and has been recently the subject

When paraphrased, the stanza above states that if the speaker is certain that she and her lover can be reunited again after death, she would enthusiastically take her own life knowing that her lover is waiting on the other side. By saying so, the speaker is considering life worthless if she cannot meet her lover. What many people call the “most valuable gift” is considered to be of no value in the eyes of the speaker if she cannot spend it with the one she loves. In addition to that statement, the author writes in stanza 3:

It is even crazier when one can love that special person even more, after they pass away. Nonetheless, that is not what it is called true love. The truest love of all is the one that remains the same by death, the one that is left unchanged. The narrator devoted his whole life to his woman, even in death. That is true love, when it is certain that there is love and it is a realization that both lovers could never live without each other. This goes hand in hand with the narrator, as he finds it difficult and almost impossible to part with the love of his life. He believes that without her, he finds no purpose in life. She does pass away, but that doesn’t stop him from being with her one bit. Death is the ultimate barrier, in this poem.

The poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman depicts the funeral of a young champion runner, who has died at the peak of his youth and athletic career. The poem makes note of the sorrow of a young life being cut short, but also glorifies the death of the athlete for capturing the young runner in the prime of his life. Housman’s poem was written in the form of the classical lyric poem, which could be influenced by Housman’s early tutoring in Greek and Latin lyric poetry (Holzberger 4). The poem also makes use of a four-line ballad stanza, which Housman forms into an elegy for the young runner as he reflects on the runner’s death (Holzberger 7). The use of symbols throughout the poem such as the

It’s about life and death about the different feelings, and the outlook of how it is when one dies. The poem

Towards the middle and of the poem, our narrator expresses that if someone tells him that his beloved one is present or receives any messages from her, then he would be brought back to life and regain his strength, good health and sprit. He would be revived! But, at the end of the poem, our narrator never saw nor heard from his beloved. His beloved has been gone for seven whole

Death is the major speaker of this poem, its persona shows how cruel and violent it can be, however she also speaks of getting everything out of life you can before death. Starting with line twenty three of the poem she begins talking about living a full life before death, "When it 's over, I want to say all my life/I was a bride married to amazement/I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms." (23-25). Being a bride married to amazement is a comparison to commitment, being with the same person every day. However in this case with a lifestyle instead. Doing amazing and memorable things every possible day you can, not letting life pass you by. This also fits perfectly with the next few lines