Ozymandias by Percy Shelley

Question 1

Ozymandias
Person?
Form?
Form?

Answer 1

1st, traveller’s speech, dramatic, places reader as listener, legend
Sonnet with iambic pentameter, Reflects Ozymandias’ self love ironically
Allegory, Metaphor for superior power of nature destroying hubristic mankind

Question 2

Ozymandias
Context?

Answer 2

-Ramesses II is subject of poem, Egyptian pharaoh, used name Ozymandias, statue discovered at time of writing
-Shelly, radical views, criticises monarchy

Question 3

Ozymandias
5 quotes

Answer 3

‘Two vast and trunkless legs’
‘sneer of cold command’
‘king of kings’
‘ye Mighty and despair!’
‘level sands stretch far away’

Question 4

Ozymandias
‘Two vast and trunkless legs’

Answer 4

-Syndetic pair of pre-modifying adjectives, contrast of past and present
-Enormity, past power
-Not permanent, eaten away by time, symbolic of nature’s power

Question 5

Ozymandias
‘sneer of cold command’

Answer 5

-Facial expressions, harsh tyrant
-Synesthesia, hubristic ruler, ironic nothing remains
-Gutteral alliteration, mirrors ruthless reign

Question 6

Ozymandias
‘king of kings’

Answer 6

-Part of egotistical declaration, thinks he is supreme
-Repetition, clear hubris, ironic as statue been destroyed
-Importance of power to him, king isn’t enough

Question 7

Ozymandias
‘ye Mighty and despair!’

Answer 7

-Talking to the gods, deluded opinion of himself, thinks he is superior and divine
-Authoritative, threatening exclamation, wanted his subjects to fear him, no one is there no, powerless

Question 8

Ozymandias
‘level sands stretch far away’

Answer 8

-Nature and man are juxtaposed, nature is eternal, powerful, man is ephemeral, weak
-Symbolic of time passing, sands in an hourglass
-Only nature endures, our place on Earth is only temporary