An enlightened British Museum should begin talks with the Greeks about returning the sculptures, says GEORGE VARDAS, while AM GLEDHILL suggests casts should be taken of artefacts and the originals repatriated I applaud the eloquent rebuttal offered by Alexi Kaye Campbell in response to Jonathan Jones’ article defending the British Museum over the Parthenon marbles (Letters, 1 February). I would also add that Jones has misunderstood the poet John Keats’ reaction to the sculptures. Keats wrote a sonnet in 1816 entitled “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles” in which the young, fragile poet’s own mortality is contrasted with “each imagined pinnacle and steep / Of godlike hardship”, the artistic achievement of “Grecian grandeur” and the “magnitude” projected by the sculptures. Keats laments the temporal dislocation and uprooting of the sculptures from their ancient past. His poem underscores his realisation that these scattered fragments of a classical order, now on display as museum pieces, are not immune to the “rude wasting” of old time. He is burdened by an “undescribable feud” and a sense of tension caused by the loss of the sculptures’ identity when transplanted to an English museum. Continue reading...
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