Ozymandias Flashcards
Summary
-The poem is about a decaying statue of Ramesses II (Ozymandias) in the desert and shows the transience of power and its inability to contend with nature. Shelley is showing that all power is temporary no matter how prideful or tyrannical a ruler is.
Context
- Shelley was a romantic poet who was seen as quite at radical for his time. He was very non-conformist, anti-monarchy, an atheist and supported social justice. He was expelled from Oxford university for publishing an atheist pamphlet.
- The poem was written near the beginning of the 19th century during the rein of George III, who was generally disliked and historically considered a tyrant. During the Romantic era, poetry was used to spread messages and political ideas in an accessible way, so this poem might have been used to make links between George II and Ramesses II (Ozymandias).
Structure/form
- The poem follows an irregular rhyme pattern which breaks away from the sonnet form’s strict rules about rhyme scheme. This could suggest that both the poem and statue are works of art that are broken and missing pieces, but it might also be a defiance of traditional poetry and literature to encourage the belief that convention and the norm should always be challenged.
- The poem blends Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets, to demonstrate that all conventions even literary ones are transient and can be subject to evolution, change and transience
Themes
- Transience of power
- Pride/Arrogance
- Politics
‘king of kings’
-This is a phrase used in the Bible to refer to Jesus, and therefore the double superlative emphasise the hubris of Ozymandias and his seemingly delusional belief that being a ruler and holding power makes him superior to others and omnipotent. Shelley is critiquing the arrogance of the monarchy and showing that power corrupts people and causes them to be arrogant and foolish.
‘lifeless things’/’colossal wreck’/’decay’
- In the middle of the poem Shelley describes the broken remains of the statue as ‘lifeless things’. The adjective ‘lifeless’ reminds the readers of mortality and the inability of humans to escape death and decay and as an extension, the inability of their legacies and power to last.It’s all transient.
- The statue, a representation of Ozymandias’ power, being reduced to a ‘colossal wreck’ dismisses the grandiose ideas of everlasting greatness and superiority he believed in and shows his legacy to be unimportant and inconsequential.
- The word ‘decay’ again shows that human power is trivial and subject to decline and destruction at the hands of nature and time.
‘Ozymandias’
- The title refers to Ramses II, a tyrannical Egyptian pharaoh. This might have caused readers of the poem in the early 19th century to think about their own monarch King George II who is historically considered a tyrant, and allow Shelley to subtly express his views on the monarchy.
- The simple one word title narrows the readers focus onto the single person ‘Ozymandias’ and the ideas associated with him.
‘wrinkled lip’/’sneer’/’pedestal’
- The ‘wrinkled lip’ creates the image of a person grimacing in disgust and contempt, which shows the King’s disregard for his people and his feelings of superiority towards them. Shelley used this to show the danger of a single individual holding too much power as it enables then to see others as inferior and oppress them.Link to context about him being anti-monarchy.
- A ‘sneer’ is a scornful mocking smile. The noun connotes to malice and cruelty, showing how the people in power treat their subjects with heartlessness and brutality, stemming from a sense of superiority. Link to anti-monarchy stance.
- The pedestal conveys the ruler’s arrogance and belief in his superiority.
‘Half sunk, a shattered visage lies’
- The ‘shattered visage’ creates a sense of irony as the statue made for the king to show his power and greatness, has been forgotten and destroyed by time and the overwhelming power of nature. Links to Shelley being a Romantic poet - loved nature saw it as pure, incorruptible unlike power.
- Use of the adjective ‘shattered’ and word ‘sunk’ to highlight how broken and destroyed the statue is and the insignificance of Ozymandias’ legacy.
‘Nothing beside remains.’
-The short sentence is a superlative statement that emphasises the decay and destruction and how there is not a single thing to show for Ozymandias’ legacy. It’s quite ironic as he write ‘Look on my works’, but there is nothing left to see.
‘I met a traveller’
- The poem begins with this phrase to disconnect the speaker from Shelley and pass any responsibility for the controversial opinions in the poem to an unknown ‘traveller’. Ozymandias can be seen as an allegory for King George III and this detachment from the poem allows Shelley to freely comment on the monarch and the power structures existing in the early 19th century, without fear of backlash.
- Also the reported speech and the fact that Shelley like most other people hadn’t actually seen the statue serves to trivialise the reign of Ozymandias, and make it seem insignificant since it’s only known by travellers
‘antique land’
-The adjective ‘antique’ implies the land of Egypt, the land he ruled is seen as outdated and irrelevant and therefore so is his legacy
Comparison
-Hawk Roosting
