The Haunted Signifier

Keats’ poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is an ekphrasis—a verbal description of a visual artwork. In contrast to life at its climatic moment, as embodied by ecstasy, the urn archives it in its petrifying economy of representation. The tension between the dead signifier and the living signified is masterfully expressed in the image of the pair of lovers, captured on the urn in the pregnant moment preceding their kiss. Having remained silent throughout the poem, in the concluding verse the figure of the urn suddenly begins to speak, stating: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” The fact that it speaks means that this petrified entity arises like a phoenix from the order of the signifier and comes to life. It is a hybrid entity—dead yet alive, or alive yet dead—suspended between life and death, signified and signifier. The poem should thus be considered as a masterpiece not only because of the short philosophical treatise condensed into its five verses, but also because of the masterful event of hospitality unfolding within it. Life and desire are hosted in the signifier’s Valley of Death, pervading it with their spectral presence.