On the Sale by Auction of Keat's Love-letters
On the Sale by Auction of Keat's Love-letters - meaning Summary
Poetry Reduced to Commerce
Wilde denounces the auctioning of Keats's love letters as a vulgar commodification of private art. He portrays bidders as merchants who put a price on pulses of passion and who "gaze or gloat" at a poet's broken heart. The poem equates this desecration with soldiers casting lots for a suffering man's garments, implying moral blindness and sacrilege. It argues that true love of art cannot tolerate its reduction to market spectacle.
Read Complete AnalysesThese are the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret and apart, And now the brawlers of the auction-mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, Aye! for each separate pulse of passion quote The merchant's price! I think they love not art Who break the crystal of a poet's heart, That small and sickly eyes may glare or gloat. Is it not said, that many years ago, In a far Eastern town some soldiers ran With torches through the midnight, and began To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw Dice for the garments of a wretched man, Not knowing the God's wonder, or his woe?
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