On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

Suffice it to say now –when I purpose to retake this blog– the lines written by Keats regarding his thoughts on his own mortality but using as a metaphor the imagery related to the Elgin Marbles which were a hot issue in the London of his time.

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.

(John Keats, 1816)

 

Perhaps Keats is lamenting the temporal dislocation and uprooting of those superb friezes at the Parthenon only to be brought to European museums, in sawed-off pieces which, also, disrupt the poet’s feelings at a time when he was feeling downcast because of his sickness.

Jesús Lorenzo Vieites

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Should Britain return the Elgin Marbles to Greece?

     

Just an appetizer to start off the never ending controversy that hits the lines on the media from time to time; in short, the British authorities simply state that the Elgin Marbles must remain in Britain as the sculptures were purchased legally and, what is more, the sculptures on the Parthenon were being destroyed at the time of Lord Elgin’s acquisition.  No other goal than the preservation of such valuable works of art for the world was behind Lord Elgin’s motivation in his pursuit of bringing the artifacts to England at the cost of his own estate while acting so.

It goes without saying that this controversy is a truly bone of contention between the two parties, that is to say, the British claim pure and simple ownership of the Marbles while the Greeks are challenging the UK’s legal ownership with romantic ideas of welcoming back the sculptures to the original places from where they should not have been removed.  Who is right?  Who is wrong?  As I said, this is really an extremely important issue in dealing with this troublesome problem and, to my mind, frankly, it seems to be irresoluble.