The Romantics often viewed
this period as the cultural ideal
Appreciation of Beauty
'Such dim-conceived glories of the brain, bring round the heart
an indescribable feud; so do these wonders a most dizzy pain
that mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude wasting of old
Time'
The Beauty of the Marbles create a
conflict within Keats, he is grappling
with how something can be so beautiful
and so eternal - 'rude wasting of old
time' relays that he understands time
will ruin them at a point but they will
outlive human life
Time wastes away, causes damage and therefore suffering.
Impermeance of the human soul
Keats mixes nature with manmade beauty to show true appreciation
'With a billowy wave - a sun'
Nature is absolutely permanent, the
final thought in the poem
Mortality
My spirit is too weak - mortality weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep
The soul, physically and emotionally weakened by the beauty of the marbles
'Unwilling sleep' - connotations of
death & the inevitability of it, humans
cannot prevent sleep just like we
cannot prevent death - the Marbles
outlive humans therefore they have
more worth
Irony: Sleep is
restorative
therefore why
would it be
unwilling
Or unwilling as in it will not come
'Like a sick eagle looking at the sky'
Simile: longing and escapism - typical of the
Romantics. The image of freedom being
denied; extremely sad, especially as Eagles
are symbols of strength it makes the sickness
almost seem inadequate
Image provokes a contradiction and
therefore somewhat of a conflict - which
is mirrored in 'an indescribable feud'
The Eagle is longing - does the Speaker long for death?
Context: The Elgin Marbles are from
the Parthenon, they were brought
to England by Lord Elgin and
purchased by the Government