Ozymandias

Question 1

What poems can you do a comparison with the power of humans, the power of nature and pride in?

Answer 1

My last duchess
The prelude
Storm in the island

Question 2

Key quotes

Answer 2

• Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
• A shatter’d visage lies
• Sneer of cold command
• The hand that mock’d them
• My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:look on my works,ye mightly, and despair !
• boundless and bare / the lone abs level sands stretch far away

Question 3

Language and themes

Answer 3

• Irony = the great king s proud boasting has been refuted : civilisation has vanished and l has been turned to a deserted,barren wasteland by the destructive and unrelenting power of time
• Power = the power if. A mere mortal however all consuming at the time is insignificant when compared to the power of nature
• time = the inscription osvtge only thing that has endured t nw tbua shows the perennial power of words

Question 4

About ???

Answer 4

A traveler in the poem tells the speaker about the visiting and ancient civilisation. Where he/she discovers the remains of a stature representing and Egyptian leader
Two vast stone legs remain with half shattered face lying near by
The inscription on the pedestal implies the ruler was proud and egocentric

Question 5

Form and structure

Answer 5

• The poet is a sonnet written in various forms of iambic pentameter
• Caesura is the first used after “who said” and sets up the travellers tale, dramatising the moment. The second and third come after “stands in the desert” and “nothing besides remains” this reinforces the statues isolation
• These a half rhyme that lends itself to a natural speech which is keeping with thevtravwllers tale