Keats' "On Seeing the elgin marbles"
It is tempting to look at a poem like John Keats' "On Seeing The Elgin Marbles" and classify it with his numerous other poems that dwell on growing old and dying. "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" certainly can be read as a poem that is primarily preoccupied with the idea of mortality. However, with this particular poem, Keats seems to consciously writing with the intent of presenting an alternate meaning to the reader. If we choose to acknowledge this possible alternate meaning, we can see the poem as transgressing the stereotyped Keats poem; instead, we can see this as a deliberately failed poem in which Keats lacks the ability to describe his excited internal state. With merely the title, Keats already sets up a scenario for the reader to clearly picture. We are to imagine that Keats has gone to see the famous Elgin Marbles that were being displayed in England shortly before Keats wrote his poem. According to Jacob Rothenberg, "the Elgin marbles arrived in England at the height of the transition from neo-classicism to romanticism. In this milieu they served as a focal point around which the most significant aesthetic and critical issues of the day were fought out" (444-445). Upon seeing these marbles that were once so beautif
This is Keats' description of how powerless he feels when he thinks about death. And he does not ever fully explain it, but he almost at once abandons the premise of writing about the Marbles in order to concentrate on his internal feelings that Marbles produce in him. Works CitedRothenberg, Jacob. With merely the title, Keats already sets up a scenario for the reader to clearly picture. Although "unwilling sleep" could easily mean death, the choice of adjectives here is interesting. Instead, Keats left us with something much more interesting and multi-faceted: a glimpse into the psychology of the poem's speaker. Keats continues to elevate himself to hero status by complaining about this death which he feels will be long-suffering; although in reality he doesn't know what kind of death he will have, his tendency for melodrama further emphasi!zes how truly appalled he is by death. Instead, Keats left us with something much more interesting and multi-faceted: a glimpse into the psychology of the poem's speaker. " That first phrase is not the only ambiguous one. Once again, Keats points out the state of decay of the Marbles in order to compare the image to that of his own eventual decay upon death. By entitling it "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles," Keats emphasizes the immediacy of the feelings that surfaces the second he casts his eyes on the Marbles; his first thought upon seeing the Marbles is that his "spirit is too weak". " Knowing that Keats frequently agonizes over an ever-impending death, we can interpret that when he says "mortality", he is talking about the agony of coming to grips with the inevitability of death. So not only is he battling with his own "mortality," but also with the mortality of all art. The Marbles have wasted away to "a shadow of a magnitude," and Keats as a mortal will die and will leave only his art as "a shadow of a magnitude. Subtly, Keats is elevating himself to a hero and a god, and giving himself more "grandeur" than an ordinary human would have.
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