Tone/ Mood.

In To An Athlete Dying young, the tone and mood start out very happy and joyous. It goes from bringing the boy home a hero to bringing him home a dead body. In line 3-4 their is a tonal shift. The tone becomes very serious and a bit melancholy. The literal definition for tone is the way something sounds.

Diction

Diction is a style of speaking or writing based on the choice of words. Based on even accent and inflection, an author can change the style of their diction completely. In poetry, different words can have different meanings. Whether it is the exact definition or an illusion/reference to something else, words can always be interpreted differently. In To An Athlete Dying Young, the author uses lots of dark words like fade, death, and swell and also uses a lot of rough sounds.

Imagery

Imagery is what allows a reader to visualize for his/her self what authors see while writing their poems. The better the imagery in  a poem, the better a reader can see what is going on in the poem. In To A Dying Athlete, lines like "we chaired you through the market place" and "Eyes the shady night has shut" allowed me to truly get the feeling of the poem.

Poetic sounds

Sounds in poetry are a key area when a poem is being analyzed. The sounds show the reader the tone and mood of the poem. Also, things like rhyme scheme and meter are very important when thinking of sounds in poetry. The way certain words are emphasized and the speed of the lines are read help get accross what kind of feeling the poem is supposed to have.

Symbol/Theme

Symbol and theme play a very important role in literature. In works such as To a Dying Athlete and Ullyseus, the theme and symbol are key. Both works feature time as their theme. One cherishing it and the other thinking it unnecessary. Their symbols are death and glory. Both of them believe that glory must be achieved in life, but one thinks that one must die young in order to do so. A theme is a an implicit or recurrent idea or motif. A symbol can be an object, relationship, or event. It metaphorically represents something much bigger than itself.