\u201cMake me in marble after I am dead;\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the opening line to Eugene Lee-Hamilton\u2019s poem \u201cAt Rest\u201d.\u00a0 In this poem, Lee-Hamilton writes of his wishes for a memorial statue to be made of him.\u00a0 He asks that he be made \u201cas they knew me\u201d (line 4).<\/p>\n
In another one of his poems, \u201cTo the So-Called Venus of Milo\u201d, Lee-Hamilton once again refers to marble statues, specifically Venus de Milo.\u00a0 She is beautiful, regardless of her physical differences.\u00a0 The Venus de Milo is a Hellenistic style statue depicting a half-covered Aphrodite made in about 150 BC.\u00a0 It was recovered in pieces and reconstructed, but its arms were never found (\u201cVenus de Milo\u201d).\u00a0 Ancient Greek statues like this one were idealized and perfected, any \u2018imperfections\u2019 would be removed and replaced in favor of constructing an ideal, unattainable body.\u00a0 Hellenistic statues are mainly dynamic and express movement in their posing.\u00a0 In \u201cAt Rest\u201d, Lee-Hamilton expresses his desire to become a marble figure, one of the famed classics.\u00a0 However, unlike the classic statues he references, his memorial will not be \u2018perfected.\u2019<\/p>\n
Here, he has the opportunity to imagine his statue however he wants, yet he chooses to keep his disability.\u00a0 The statue is to be \u201crecumbent,\u201d just as he was (line 2).\u00a0 He does not want or envision his perfect self with a \u201cfixed\u201d body.\u00a0 Instead, he wants to be made into art.\u00a0 He wants to be admired and respected; most importantly, he wants to be noticed.<\/p>\n
By turning himself into a piece of artwork to be observed, Lee-Hamilton takes on a role similar to nude women in art.\u00a0 Through the Victorian period, as interest in beauty grew so did the popularity of the nude.\u00a0 Women’s bodies were something of fascination, an unparalleled kind of beauty to be portrayed by skilled artists.\u00a0 But this admiration of the female figure did not come without constraints.\u00a0 The viewers of these artworks feared the \u201cdangerous sexual powers\u201d of women (Lee).\u00a0 To control this fear, and to control women the \u201cwomen are rendered decorative, depersonalized\u2026women are reduced to an aesthetic arrangement of sexual parts, for male fantasies” (Lee).\u00a0 Stripped of their identity, the women portrayed in art are not people; they are no more than a collection of carefully arranged color and line (Lee).<\/p>\n
To allow the nude body to be shown publicly, and to evade the onslaught of the Victorians, artists had to distance the figure from reality.\u00a0 This was often accomplished by relating the artwork to myth or by abstracting elements to remove the body from reality.\u00a0 This created distance allowed the spectators to look without consequence.\u00a0 This can be seen in the Venus de Milo.\u00a0 The statue depicts Aphrodite: a goddess, not a woman.\u00a0 She is allowed to be nude because she is not real.\u00a0 This makes a dissonance that allows the viewers to enjoy the sensuousness of the body while denying any lust.\u00a0 Additionally, she is not fully uncovered, the lower half of her body is draped with cloth.\u00a0 In the most accepted theory of its original form, her right arm is believed to be reaching for the draping (Kousser, 239).\u00a0 This pose justifies her nudity while still maintaining sensuality.\u00a0 Even with the prudish nature of the period, Venus de Milo was regarded in the 19th century as \u201cthe embodiment of concepts such as Tradition and Taste\u201d (N.).<\/p>\n
This distance is applied by Lee-Hamilton towards his marble body in \u201cAt Rest.\u201d\u00a0 However, this distance is not from nudity or sex, but from his disability.\u00a0 With the use of a marble statue Lee-Hamilton’s disability is removed from anything real.\u00a0 Onlookers can admire it without having to face reality.\u00a0 The statue is lifeless and feels no pain:<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Save that the motionless and marble head<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Will never ache with hope forever vain;<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And down the marble limbs the waves of pain<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Will never race, but all be peace instead. (line 5-8)<\/p>\n
There are no consequences of Lee-Hamilton\u2019s disability on the statue, so effectively it is not disabled.\u00a0 Viewers are able to gaze without having to confront the real-life hardships of disability.\u00a0 It is no longer something \u2018ugly\u2019 or uncomfortable.\u00a0 As with the female nude, Lee-Hamilton’s disability is now something to be admired.<\/p>\n
And this admiration is welcomed.\u00a0 Lee-Hamilton in statue form is depicted sleeping, literally \u201cAt Rest.\u201d\u00a0 This is a common pose for memorial statues, but it also invites a voyeuristic gaze.\u00a0 Being \u201csafely asleep\u201d welcomes spectators and provides further comfort (Lee).\u00a0 It allows viewers to look without confrontation; they don’t need to think about their role in the fetishization of the subject.\u00a0 Lee-Hamilton wants his body to be enticing, he wants people to look.<\/p>\n
With his desire to be made a marble statue, Lee-Hamilton indicates a desire for attention and appreciation.\u00a0 He becomes a subject of voyeurism and he loses respect as a result.\u00a0 Like the nude woman, Lee-Hamilton becomes \u201cdismembered [from his] body and [his] identity\u201d (Lee).\u00a0 But he is willing to make this sacrifice.\u00a0 Lee-Hamilton allows, and perhaps even participates in, his own emasculation.\u00a0 In exchange, however, he regains agency.\u00a0 \u201cThe victims of this voyeurism still retain a certain amount [of] power over the viewer, who is enthralled with fascination\u201d (Lee).\u00a0 The viewers are enticed by him<\/em>, with his disability.\u00a0 He will not be excluded for being other, his differences will be the subject of admiration.\u00a0 Perhaps the reality of disability is too much for the Victorians, but Lee-Hamilton can receive their captivation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Works Cited<\/p>\n Kousser, Rachel. \u201cCreating the Past: The V\u00e9nus de Milo and the Hellenistic Reception of Classical Greece.\u201d American Journal of Archaeology<\/em>, vol. 109, no. 2, 2005, pp. 227\u201350. JSTOR<\/em>, http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/40024510. Accessed 21 Apr. 2025.<\/p>\n Lee-Hamilton, Eugene. \u201cAt Rest.\u201d Sonnets of the Wingless Hours<\/em>, 1894, pp. 21.<\/p>\n N., A. A. \u201cVenus de Milo.\u201d The Classical Tradition<\/em>, edited by Anthony Grafton et al., 1st ed., Harvard University Press, 2010. Credo Reference<\/em>, https:\/\/search.credoreference.com\/articles\/Qm9va0FydGljbGU6MTIzMzM5NQ==?aid=104013.<\/p>\n \u201cVenus de Milo.\u201d Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica Online<\/em>, Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica Inc, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMake me in marble after I am dead;\u201d This is the opening line to Eugene Lee-Hamilton\u2019s poem \u201cAt Rest\u201d.\u00a0 In this poem, Lee-Hamilton writes of his wishes for a memorial statue to be made of him.\u00a0 He asks that he be made \u201cas they knew me\u201d (line 4). In another one of his poems, \u201cTo … Continue reading It’s Not Perverse if it’s Just Stone: Making the Uncomfortable Desirable in \u201cAt Rest\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5519,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2025-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}