“The Phoenix and the Turtle” has a reputation for being a mysterious and difficult poem. While poets who lived in the same period as Shakespeare like John Donne and John Milton knew and alluded to the poem, it was in the 19th century that the poem began to be recognized as one of Shakespeare’s greatest. The English poet John Keats drew on it in his poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” This poem contains the famous line “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,” which draws on some of Shakespeare’s themes. Similarly, the image of the Greek urn draws on the urn that holds the ashes of the Phoenix and the Turtle. Emily Dickinson also builds on Shakespeare’s poem in her “I died for Beauty.” The short poem describes two people buried in tombs next to each other. The two speak, and they learn that one died for Beauty while the other died for Truth. These tomb-mates are united in eternity just like the Phoenix and the Turtle.
Also in the 19th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about “The Phoenix and the Turtle.” In an essay on Shakespeare, Emerson writes, “for reasons which evade expression in ordinary speech, "The Phoenix and the Turtle" is the most perfect short poem in any language. It is pure poetry in the loftiest and most abstract meaning of the words: that is to say, it gives us the highest experience which it is possible for poetry to give, and it gives it without intermission.” This high praise from a famous and respected writer opened the way for more writers to rediscover this poem in the 20th century.
James Joyce alluded to the poem in his modernist novel Ulysses when he described “defunctive music.” Shakespeare was the first person on record to use this word related to death, so Joyce’s use of it shows that he is drawing on “The Phoenix and the Turtle.” William Faulkner also used words and phrases from the poem in his novels, such as “defunctive” and “either neither.” 20th-century poetry is also full of references to Shakespeare’s poem, from Kenneth Rexroth’s epic travel poem "The Phoenix and the Tortoise" to Wallace Stevens's “Of Mere Being.” Despite the mysteriousness of Shakespeare’s poem, both readers and writers have repeatedly returned to it for inspiration.
