Ozymandias key quotes Flashcards
“Half sunk a shattered visage lies “
Hyperbaton
conveys several ideas about the fleeting nature of power, the destructive power of nature, and the irony of a king’s boast
a King who believed so strongly in his own power and superiority, and who tried so hard to present this image of greatness through his statue, has now been forgotten and destroyed by time other than the visage that had been intended to show he was unforgettable.
“Land” and “Sand”
“Things and kings”
Alternate end rhyme
- Trying to preserve power
what remains is the natural course of time
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings”
Biblical reference to 1 Timothy , “king of kings “
a reflection of the speaker’s arrogance and pride
The line could also imply that Ozymandias’s downfall was a result of his hubris, or that pride comes before a fall.
“Boundless and bare “ used to describe the desert that surrounds the ruins of a statue
bilabial plosive
alliteration serves to communicate the vast, powerful extent of nature
“far away”
The statue is in a “far
away” where it stands so
insignificant and
unrecognised that only
travellers know it exists.
Egypt (the statue of the
poem exists, and
originated from the
Ramesseum in Egypt)
which Ozymandias had
tried so hard to extend and
empower.His pursuits are
condemned to failure when
the insignificance of Egypt
allows it to be dismissively
deemed “far away
form and structure
Sonnet form - sonnet poem and takes elements of Shakespearean sonnet. = power changes and is transient
The poem is written in loose iambic pentameter = used because its a sonnet, Some suggest that the sonnet form has been used to mirror Ozymandias’ egotistical love of himself.
context
Shelley was a radical, romantic poet; he was vegetarian, strongly anti-monarchy, a pacifist, an atheist, anti-religion, and supported social justice. He wanted to end the oppression of ordinary people, inspired by the French Revolution. He got expelled from Oxford University for publishing an atheist pamphlet and delivering it to religious figures. At 19 he got married after running off from his first wife who killed herself. He came from a very wealthy family, and was set to have a comfortable
life with inheritance and a government role from his grandfather. He was a second generation romantic.
Shelley, one of the most famous poets of
his time, explores conflict in his poem
Ozymandias, which was named after the
Egyptian pharaoh, Rameses II. It is thought
that Shelley, a radical romantic poet who
often criticised society in his works, was
making implicit links between Rameses’
powerful but violent rein with that of George
III. George III reigned during the time the
poem was written, and was generally
disliked.
George III has been seen historically as a tyrant
