In his sonnet “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time,” John Keats presents a series of various forms of conflict and tension. is the poet's sense of his own fleeting existence juxtaposed with the eternity of Greek marble sculptures and, perhaps, the timelessness of art in general. However, there is another, more subtle tension between what exists and what does not exist. an absence which paradoxically manifests itself as a form of existence in itself. The presence of this conflict in the sonnet shows Keats's self-invented negative capacity, the capacity to be in "uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable search for facts and reason." (Keats 863). Furthermore, the negative capacity illustrated here is produced by the speaker's empathic experience with the ruins of Greek sculptures, which he appreciates in their entirety, not only for the fragments which remained physically intact, but also for the objects lost. portions and details, which are an essential element of their state of ruin. The notion of “mortality” (l. 1) is immediately brought forward in the sonnet, with a significant enjambment on the word itself. Thus, from the outset, the speaker draws attention to his mortal state, which implies both life, an existence and a possible absence of this life. By then concretizing the abstract “mortality”, by combining it with the word “[p]ese” (2), the speaker produces a reification of mortality as an object which weighs on him; thus, a concept implying an absence, mortality, becomes an entity that affects it. The existence of a possible absence of life, death, produces its disorder. Another central image, that of a "sick eagle looking up at the sky" (5), brings the tension to the fore....... middle of paper.... .. 91.Keats, John. “A poet has no identity.” Letter to Richard Woodhouse. October 27, 1818. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume Two The Romantic Period in the Twentieth Century. 5th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. 868. Keats, John. “Negative capacity”. Letter to George and Thomas Keats. December 21, 1817. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume Two The Romantic Period in the Twentieth Century. 5th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986. 862. Keats, John. “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Ed. Abrams HM The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume Two The Romantic Period in the Twentieth Century. New York: WW Norton, 1986. Print. Keats, John. “Seeing the Elgin Marbles.” Ed. Abrams HM The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume Two The Romantic Period in the Twentieth Century. New York: WW Norton, 1986. Print.