On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

“On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” is a sonnet by John Keats that first appeared in the London newspaper The Examiner in 1817. Keats reflects on the timeless allure of the ancient Greek sculptures known as the Elgin Marbles, which by their beauty remind him of his own smallness and the fact that he will someday die. Even these sculptures, which are able to captivate viewers long after they were first created, are hardly immune to the destructive effects of time, as they are badly damaged themselves.

Keats’s sonnet is an example of ekphrasis, that is, literature that describes a work of art. For Keats, the “Grecian grandeur” (Line 12) of the Elgin Marbles is a reminder of the transience of human achievement and of the poet’s own mortality. The Elgin Marbles is a collection of sculptures that were part of the Parthenon in Athens, brought to London in the early 1800s. They went on display not long before Keats wrote his famous poem. The Elgin Marbles almost immediately sparked controversy, with many objecting that the sculptures were brought to Britain illegally. Though Keats’s poem does not address these concerns, they are important for contextualizing his poem.