Samuel Johnson's Coming Of Age, When I Was One-And-Twenty

Words: 473
Pages: 2

The coming of age of youth is a popular topic in literature, be it novel or poem, the subplot of some massive book or the focus of a writer’s memory. Samuel Johnson and A. E. Housman showcase this ancient focus in their respective poems “To Sir John Lade, on His Coming of Age” and “When I Was One-and-Twenty” about the changes that come at the age of twenty one. Both reference the heart and giving it to others, albeit not always in the same ways. They both reference the freedom of the purse and how money should be spent in similar fashion. And yet they also reference the dangers that lie within adulthood along with the scorning of elders’ advice.
Money is of importance in both poems, being important to the first stanza of Housman’s and of at