After the statement, West’s forces an unnatural smile probably because he mentioned earlier that “failure” is at the center of meaning, not romantic wholeness. Furthermore, falling short gives us a sense of gratitude for what we do have and a platform to consider our ontology: “A meaningful life is a process, not a destination” (West). Ultimately, West subverts the wholeness feature of Romanticism easily when he utters the statement …show more content…
Ironically, West might argue that the speaker of “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” missed a perfect opportunity to begin the tale from the starting point of “catastrophe” (West). Here, our encounter with the text shifts to the Mariner’s sense of gratitude for his existence, an intellectual starting point that West coins: “not having it all” (West). Subverting romantic wholeness, we examine Keats 1817 poem, “On Seeing the Elgin Marbles.” To begin, the speaker personalize the text with “My” in an opening confession of deficiency: “My spirit is too weak – mortality” (1). Barley able to finish the line, the speaker continues on with the impression that all pleasure has its place in nature, but is incomparable to life’s “hardship.” Making these points, the speaker briefly touches on: existence, death and history, to exploit pain in convincing us that having everything is