Analysis Of 'On Seeing The Elgin Marbles' By John Kelications

In his sonnet “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles,” John Keats uses Greek art as inspiration for a reflection on the inevitability of death and how in the end even his best memories may not feel good enough. The impending role that mortality has on his existence is shown through Keats’s careful use of similes, diction, and a quirk to the rhyme scheme. The generalized images that the words create and the cluttered meter contribute to Keats’s theme that memories crumble over time like the Elgin Marbles, and eventually, the memories may not seem like anything better than a waste of precious time. The opening octet focuses on mortality as an impending doom. Keats’s poem begins with a dark confession: “My spirit is too weak—mortality / Weighs heavily

The last line of the octet includes an extra syllable, as do the eighth and tenth lines, while the ninth line of Keats’s poem includes only nine syllables. These deviations from standard meter help to draw attention to the unorganized, complex, and imperfect nature of memories. Similar to the uneven properties of the poem’s meter, a sculpture begins to chip over time. This corrosion of sculptures creates hills and valleys of marble just like the jagged framework of the poem’s meter and “each imagined pinnacle and steep / Of godlike hardship . . . ” that Keats describes (3-4). These nonconformities expose the flaws in Keats’s ability to accurately remember the hills and valleys of his own

Also known as the Parthenon Sculptures, the Elgin Marbles were originally part of the Parthenon in Athens, damaged over time for many different reasons, and sold to the British Museum in 1816 (“Parthenon Sculptures”). During 1817, Keats viewed these Ancient Greek sculptures that hold great historical significance in the realms of theology, prowess, and beauty; however, even important artwork faces damage over time. The motif of mortality that is used throughout the poem becomes even further solidified when it is taken into account that Keats wrote this poem with the crumbling Elgin Marbles as his inspiration. The mortality of human life resembles “Grecian grandeur with the rude / Wasting of old time . . .” (Keats 12-13). Keats notices that marble falls apart just like the memories and happiness of human