On Seeing the Elgin Marbles

The Elgin Marbles are the central symbol of the poem, representing the themes of The Power and Importance of Art and The Timelessness of Antiquity but also serving as a reminder of The Burden of Mortality—both the speaker’s own individual mortality as well as the wear and aging to which even great works of art are ultimately subject. Though the poem is, in a sense, an ekphrastic poem, the speaker never describes the Elgin Marbles themselves in any detailed way, focusing instead on the emotions they evoke in him. These sculptures, created in ancient Athens in the fifth century BCE, represent to the speaker the “imagined pinnacle and steep / Of godlike hardship” (Lines 3-4); they are “wonders” (Line 11) for him to behold, and they represent the allure of classical antiquity, the “Grecian grandeur” (Line 12). By their very power, the Elgin Marbles make the speaker feel “weak” (Line 1) in comparison, reminding him of his own mortality. But the sculptures also remind him of something even more disturbing than his mortality: For all their beauty and timelessness, the Elgin Marbles the speaker sees have been badly damaged over the millennia, causing him to feel “a most dizzy pain” (Line 11) as he reflects that even these symbols of enduring human achievements are not immortal, that they too are subject to “the rude / Wasting of old time” (Lines 12-13).