Who is the speaker is the poem, To an Athlete Dying Young?

Housman uses unnamed, first-person, plural speakers to narrate “To an Athlete Dying Young.” Presumably, the speakers are the inhabitants of Shropshire vocalizing in choric unison, owing to the fact that “To an Athlete Dying Young” is part of Housman’s poetry cycle, A Shropshire Lad, which centers on his semi-fictionalized setting of Shropshire. This choral and unified communal voice is the most evident in the collective call to action that the speakers issue for themselves toward the end of Housman’s poem as part of their efforts to memorialize their heroic athlete – “So set, before its echoes fade, / The fleet foot on the sill of shade, / And hold to the low lintel up / The still-defended challenge-cup” (23-24).

In this way, Housman’s speakers are unlike the choral speakers or oral narrators found in classical epics and plays, who are often passive onlookers to the acts of heroism that they describe. Throughout “To an Athlete Dying Young,” the speakers are active mourners rather than passive onlookers, referring to themselves consistently with verbs in the active tense. As such, Housman’s speakers emphasize that the process of lamenting for the loss of a hero is not so much individualized and egocentric, but actively based in the community from which the hero comes.