Blessed Be the Death of Marat- Olivia Lytle

David, Jacques-Louis. The Death of Marat. 1793. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Belgium.

Blessed Be the Death of Marat

Olivia Lytle

In a too-dark scene, he’s cold to the touch,

if one were ever so lucky as you.

Suspended by the last tick of the clock,

the scratch of quill on parchment.

An unspoken reply, a knife in place of a feather.

Once the ink dries, what is left of poor Monsieur Marat?

He’s but the thing that killed him, and he’s a Saint

in Memorium, entombed to his reddened tub.

And Charlotte, oh Charlottle.

Nothing tastes so sweet as the death of the soul.

And your soul, black as the ink of your victim’s quill.

Your final move, The Terror, what was it all for?

But he smiles as if he knows, and he knows.

Beyond the grave, you hear them chant,

Blessed be the Death of Marat,

France’s great martyr. 

I decided to focus my ekphrastic poem on Jacques-Louis David’s 1793 painting, “The Death of Marat”. This painting has always impacted me in a very specific way that I cannot quite place, and I think exploring it through poetry aided me in this endeavor. “The Death of Marat” is a very historically impactful painting as it depicts the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat at the hands of Charlotte Corday at the height of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. Corday, a member of the Girondist faction of moderate republicans, believed Marat, a Jacobin, to be the cause of countless deaths during this tumultuous time in France’s history. So, to prevent the onset of further deaths, she assassinated him herself. With Christian iconography and a helpless depiction of the victim, Marat appears to be both a hero and a Martyr, making the painting a very obscure piece of propaganda. I wanted to incorporate the impact of this Christian iconography, so I made sure to compare Marat to a Saint in line 7 and to mention the conflict of the soul, especially Corday’s after her decision. I wanted to speak to Charlotte Corday directly within the poem, as I would want to speak to her in real life to ask her why she did what she did, even if I know the supposed reason. I find the painting so interesting as it depicts the helpless moments after death, the cruelty of its onset, and the crucially still moments beforehand, and I wanted my poem to cover these themes. The painting just feels so stuck, in both time and place, so in my poem, I tried to put the reader inside this one moment, almost as if they are in the room with Marat. I also like to think I am speaking to Charlotte after she killed him as we both gaze upon her final purpose: the death of Marat. I also simply think it is a beautiful painting and I am happy I got to experiment with ekphrastic poetry.