2.4.1 Ozymandias

Question 1

Poet

Answer 1

Percy Shelley

Question 2

Theme Code

Answer 2

JUMBO-AT

Question 3

Themes

Answer 3

Negative Emotion of Pride, Power of Art, Man vs Nature, Power of Nature, Misguided Notions of Human Power, Power of Humans, Fragility

Question 4

Quotes

Answer 4

• ‘Shattered visage’
• ‘Wrinkled lip’
• ‘Cold command’
• ‘The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed’
• ‘King of kings’
• ‘Look on my works, ye mighty and despair, nothing beside remains, round the decay’-

Question 5

Main Structural Points

Answer 5

• Use of Petrarchan Sonnet (Octave and Sestet)
• Shakespearean Sonnet (ABAB)
• New form of a sonnet (ACDC-EDE-FDF)

Question 6

Explain the quote ‘King of kings’

Answer 6

Irony
The irony as we as the reader know only about the king from the traveller’s report. Ozymandias’ pride and arrogance made him believe he was the most powerful and was the ‘king of kings’ but we know as time has gone on his name is being forgotten slowly over time until nobody remembers the supposed ‘king of kings’.

Question 7

Explain the quote ‘Look on my works, ye mighty and despair… nothing beside remains, round the decay’

Answer 7

Dramatic Irony & Juxtaposition
As the king clearly expected his empire and kingdom to live on until today and survive, yet it has not. Juxtaposition as we read a line from the statue telling us to ‘look on my works’ but then we are brought to a line telling us there is nothing but decay, this emphasis his power has gone and everything he thought he had built was all forgotten and gone, it didn’t last like his power.

Question 8

Quotes for the Main Structural Point

Answer 8

• ‘Land’, ‘Stone’, ‘Sand’, ‘Frown’

Question 9

Simplified Main Structural Point

Answer 9

Like how the sonnets form into a new one as time goes on is like how power forms into a new one and it does not last.

Question 10

Main Structural Point

Answer 10

Shelley has chosen to write ‘Ozymandias’ in the form of a Sonnet which contains 14 lines and is written in iambic pentameter. What is interesting is that Sonnets are most often written about love and romance rather than power and conflict. ‘Ozymandias’ might have been written in such form because Shelley was suggesting that Ozymandias was in love with himself and his power. It could also be Shelley criticising the Government, Shelley was one of the Romantic Poets, romanticists of the time disliked imposed control by those in power, as King George III of the time has many similarities to Ozymandias, in terms of also being in love with himself and his power and getting involved in many conflicts; this could be a hidden message to the King that his destiny and fate will end eventually and be forgotten, his power will not last like Ozymandias’s. Now the poem is not written in one type of Sonnet but instead a mix of three. The poem uses the Petrarchan Sonnet in terms of having an Octave that poses the problem and having a sestet to solve the problem, but it does not follow the Petrarchan sonnet’s rhyme scheme, instead for the first 4 lines it uses the Shakespearan sonnet’s rhyme scheme of ABAB (‘land’, ‘stone’, ‘sand’, ‘frown’), then forms into an entirely new rhyme scheme of ACDC-EDE-FDF
That Shelley has created for ‘Ozymandias’. This is incredibly smart as just like how over time the Pentrach gave way for the Shakespearean sonnet that gave way to this new form of the sonnet reflects how one’s power makes way and forms for somebody else’s power over time, nothing remains forever, not even the sonnet. This is a message to Ozymandias and King George III that their power will not last and will make way for a new King.