On Seeing The Elgin Marbles

Upon seeing the elgin marbles keats is overcome by a sense of his own mortality.
On seeing the elgin marbles. The objects were removed from the parthenon at athens and from other ancient buildings and shipped to england by arrangement of thomas. John keats on seeing the elgin marbles. The parthenon marbles greek. Investigating themes in on seeing the elgin marbles.
My spirit is too weak. Elgin marbles collection of ancient greek sculptures and architectural details in the british museum london where they are now called the parthenon sculptures. Posted on september 20 2011 by impracticalcriticism. What is keats saying about the worth of human artistry.
On seeing the elgin marbles john keats 1795 1821 my spirit is too weak mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep and each imagined pinnacle and steep of godlike hardship tells me i must die like a sick eagle looking at the sky. 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 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. They were originally part of the temple of the parthenon and other buildings on the acropolis of athens.
The marbles have immense beauty and grandeur but they used to be part of the frieze on the parthenon in athens. Explain how the poem conveys the idea that art can both move with its beauty and disturb by its tendency to remind us of our own mortality. Now the sculptures are in fragments and in london no longer a living part of religion but exhibits in a museum. This sonnet attempts to convey the poet s complex attitude towards death couched in a reflection on the british museum s greek statues.
A combination of obscure and abstract images give the poem a lightness which belies its proposed interest.