Can you please help with these questions about "To An Athlete Dying Young"?

Question

Why is the athlete a "smart lad"?

In what regard?

Why is he going to "slip away" to?

What is the meaning of the phrase "From fields where glory does not stay"?

Explain the metaphor?

What is the nature of the glory being referred to? Where is it of a temporary, transitory nature? Is there such a thing as permanent "glory"?

What would one have to do to achieve it? Explain.

What is the significance of the references to the "laurel" and the "rose"?

What is the meaning of the reference to "withers quicker"? Why choose that particular word?

What relation does it have to glory?

Answer 1

1. Smart because he dies early and avoids the shame of seeing his record broken and his achievement surpassed. This is a bitter sentiment. Death is better than fame in life.

2. He slips away from life to the underworld ("strengthless dead") mentioned at the end of the poem.

3. The fields are the athletic fields. Glory doesn't stay there because all records are broken. The fields are a metaphor for this world, the world where achievement fades away.

4. The glory is the fame of having won a contest or a race, as the athlete has done.

5. Probably no such thing as permanent glory. Poem implies that there may not be but does not address the issue explicitly.

6. One would have to achieve the impossible to gain lasting glory. Maybe someone like Akhilleus achieved everlasting glory as the greatest Greek fighter of all time, but even he regrets it in Book XI of _The Odyssey._ This idea is not in "To an Athlete Dying Young," however.

7. The laurel is a wreath made out of laurel leaves put on the athlete's head. it is a sign that he has won his race; the rose, possibly a symbol of beauty, withers, like the laurel, when cut and put on a person, but of the two--the laurel and the rose--the rose withers more quickly.

8. Glory stays a little while, like the laurel, but it too withers.

You didn't ask questions about the hardest part of the poem--nor is this much about the poem as poem!