On Seeing The Elgin Marbles Line By Line Analysis

Although he died at the age of twenty five keats had perhaps the most remarkable career of any english poet.

On seeing the elgin marbles line by line analysis. Bruce originally only intended to have. The elgin marbles are a set of statues and friezes removed from the parthenon in athens by a british lord elgin and taken back to england at the beginning of the 19th century. History of the marbles the marbles were removed from the roofless ruin of the parthenon in athens greece during the years 1801 1804 by agents of thomas bruce the british ambassador to the ottoman empire also known as the earl of elgin. Upon seeing the elgin marbles keats is overcome by a sense of his own mortality.

A combination of obscure and abstract images give the poem a lightness which belies its proposed interest in stone and monuments. Now the sculptures are in fragments and in london no longer a living part of religion but exhibits in a museum. John keats on seeing the elgin marbles. On seeing the elgin marbles by john keats about this poet john keats was born in london on 31 october 1795 the eldest of thomas and frances jennings keats s four children.

John keats known for writing about his fear of lack of time to achieve love and accomplish enough in his profession to be remembered i have left no immortal work behind me nothing to make my friends proud of my memory but i have lov d the principle of beauty in all things and. The marbles have immense beauty and grandeur but they used to be part of the frieze on the parthenon in athens. This sonnet attempts to convey the poet s complex attitude towards death couched in a reflection on the british museum s greek statues. 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.

Keats would have never seen them in their intended placement situated on the temples of the acropolis complex. Themes in on seeing the elgin marbles the worth of human artistry the poem is a reflection on the pleasures and the pains of human creativity. The sonnet on seeing the elgin marbles tells the reader how john keats struggles with mortality and that struggle brought this sonnet to express that accepting fate exceeds denying an inevitable death. He states how he knows that his mortality means that one day he must die.

The marbles represent the best of human imagination. Analysis of on seeing the elgin marbles by john kelications.