Keats, Updike, and the Immortality of Art Christopher Tucker College

Throughout history, humans’ fascination with art has sprung from the emotional response that a beautiful piece evokes. A sample of art’s effect on its viewer is conveyed in ekphrastic poetry, a medium by which poets, moved by works of art, attempt to translate their interpretation of the message of a piece or series of pieces into words. John Keats, a celebrated poet of the early Romantic period, was driven by this same urge when he was inspired to write Ode on a Grecian Urn. The piece to which Keats’ poem refers is unknown, but the powerful influence that the object had on him is obvious, the urn extracting from Keats some of his principal grievances with mortal life. John Updike, a Pulitzer-winning poet of the later 20th century, was drawn to ekphrastic poetry through similar artistic inspiration. While observing Picasso’s “Girl Before a Mirror” for the first time since his youth, he was moved to write Before the Mirror. However, rather than focus on mortal life as painful and temporary, he views the painting as an opportunity to preserve an aspect of his younger self, and thereby share in the painting’s immortal nature.

Keats’ feelings towards the timelessness of art are, at the very least, understandable. Keats was exposed...