Versecraft

"On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" by John Keats


Listen Later

Topics discussed in this episode include: 

-Schedule change!

-My trip to England

-Romanticism

-The charm of Keats

-The tragedy of Keats

-The tragedy of Pergolesi

-Italian sonnet redux

-The creative opportunity that is rhyme

-Why this sonnet is weird

-The riddle of Keats's morbidity

-Ode To A Nightingale

-The Notorious B.I.G.

-Ode On Melancholy

-Oscar Wilde and the Aesthetic Movement

-The poet is un-poetical, unless the poet is Keats

-Keats's self awareness

-The undescribable feud, described

-On Looking Into Chapman's Homer

-The second-worst thing the Ottomans ever did

-Ubi Sunt

-The Romantic fetish for ruins

-Metrical FUBAR

-The doctrine of The Association of Ideas

-The shift from Objectivity to Subjectivity 

-Suns, seas, and shadows


Text of the poem:

 
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.  

Support the show

BUY VERSECRAFT MERCH HERE.

VISIT THE VERSECRAFT SUBSTACK HERE.

Please subscribe, rate, and review! Thanks so much for listening.

You can leave me a tip, support the podcast, or request a commission here!

TikTok: @versecraft
Send me a note at: [email protected]

My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

VersecraftBy Elijah Perseus Blumov

  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7
  • 4.7

4.7

25 ratings


More shows like Versecraft

View all
Poetry Off the Shelf by Poetry Foundation

Poetry Off the Shelf

422 Listeners

The TLS Podcast by The TLS

The TLS Podcast

180 Listeners

Hidden Brain by Hidden Brain, Shankar Vedantam

Hidden Brain

43,353 Listeners

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily by American Public Media

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

1,187 Listeners

The Rest Is History by Goalhanger

The Rest Is History

13,085 Listeners

SLEERICKETS by Matthew Buckley Smith

SLEERICKETS

36 Listeners

The Poetry Space_ by Katie Dozier and Timothy Green

The Poetry Space_

54 Listeners

Poetry with A.E. Stallings by Oxford University

Poetry with A.E. Stallings

4 Listeners