Ozymandias Flashcards
1
Q
Poet
A
Percy Bysshe Shelley
2
Q
themes
A
power of nature
abuse of power
3
Q
Form
A
petrarchan sonnet: usually 14 lines and rhyming couplet, but this poem doesn’t follow the traditional structure. This is to represent the fact that the statue is crumbling, doing something unpredictable by Ramses.
4
Q
Poet Context
A
- against the idea of monarchy
- feels strongly about the abuse of power within the monarchy
- Romantic writer: focuses on deep meanings and emotions
5
Q
“Two
A
vast and trunkless legs of stone”
- size emphasises power
- trunkless suggests it’s incomplete, whereas stone suggests it’s durable- irony
6
Q
“half
A
sunk, a shattered visage lies”
- not as strong as he initially believed
7
Q
“sneer
A
of cold command”
- harsh alliteration - even the sculptor recognises his arrogance
8
Q
“stamped
A
on these lifeless things”
- human power is insignificant to that of nature
- not even nature wants the monarchy to withstand time
9
Q
“my name
A
is Ozymandias, king of kings! look on my works, ur mighty, and despair!”
- ignorance
- irony: the statue has not withstood the test of time. symbolic of the idea that his memory didn’t withstand the test of time either- as he was forgotten, so was his statue
10
Q
“nothing
A
beside remains.”
- destruction of power: nothing left of him, suggests his unimportance, emphasised by caesura- there’s no more to it. it’s not important.
11
Q
“colossal
A
wreck, boundless and bare”
- plosive sounds- extreme destruction: he deserves this
- “colossal” is a metaphor for his vast ego rather than the statue
12
Q
“the lone
A
and level sands stretch far away”
- when spoken aloud, the words get further and further away from the mouth and deeper into the throat as the sentence progresses. This emphasises how the sands do in fact stretch further and further away, emphasising ozymandias as irrelevant in the current world
