On Seeing the Elgin Marbles
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.
Yet ’tis a gentle luxury to weep
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an undescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old time—with a billowy main—
A sun—a shadow of a magnitude.
the mood of the poem is humbled and tired of chanlenges it is shown in figurative language. his spirit is not literally too weak. it does not literally weigh on him during sleep. the Elgin Marbles are famous Greek sculptures. they got their name from the Englishman who stole them in the 17th century. i think this speaker thought he was an important man but upon looking at this statue he realized how un-important he actually is.
the tone of the poem is influenced by the rhyme scheme. the poem clearly rhymes but the rhyme scheme changes. i think he chose ti do this to signify a change in the view of the speaker. "bring round the heart" i think the " i have not the cloudy winds to keep is in reference to the fact that he does not want to hold onto something, and he wants to see the world in from a new view.
ps. im not sure how this would fit in but i noticed a lot of mentions to things doing with nature, sun, eagles, cloudy winds, mornings eye etc.
the tone of the poem is influenced by the rhyme scheme. the poem clearly rhymes but the rhyme scheme changes. i think he chose ti do this to signify a change in the view of the speaker. "bring round the heart" i think the " i have not the cloudy winds to keep is in reference to the fact that he does not want to hold onto something, and he wants to see the world in from a new view.
ps. im not sure how this would fit in but i noticed a lot of mentions to things doing with nature, sun, eagles, cloudy winds, mornings eye etc.
Good start. I think you've summed it up nicely. My questions are: What tells you the speaker thought he was an important man? What do the following lines mean?
ReplyDelete"... I have not the cloudy winds to keep/Fresh for the opening of the morning’s eye"
"the rude/Wasting of old time—with a billowy main—/A sun—a shadow of a magnitude." (what does the word "main" mean in this line?)
Keats was a Romantic poet. That should give you a hint as to the references to natural things... Good job.