“ON THE VANITY OF EARTHLY GREATNESS”

“ON THE VANITY OF EARTHLY GREATNESS”

               “On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness” is a modern poem written by an American poet, Arthur Guiteman. It is a flawless poem, which shows the remorselessness of time and the vanity of human greatness.

              Through this poem, the poem announces his philosophy of life or outlook that all those entities that symbolize earthly grandeur, greatness and power such as the tusks of mastodons, the sword of Charlemagne the Just, the Grizzly bear, Great Caesar etc will be reduced in course of time into things of non-entity.

              The presentation of subject matter is quite ironical. Without using the negative words, the poet turns the things of earthly greatness into mere showpiece and nothingness. Each sentence is well balanced with splendid things in place of subject being linked up with worthless objects at the other end. Each sentence of the poem brings out the image of balance with a grand figure on the side and cipher on the other side. The irony is obvious when the readers notice the tusks transformed into billiard balls, the sword of Charlemagne into rust, the grizzly bear into rug etc.

              One can trace out the signs of vanity in the last couplet where the poet admits that he does not feel so well himself in the presence of Great Caesar’s bust on the shelf. This implies that even the poet is not a exception because to some extent he also seems to suffer from vanity complex of greatness.