Ozymandias - Percy Shelley Flashcards
What type of poet is he? What type of poem is this? What is the meter?
Romantic poet
Framing poem
Loose iambic pentameter
What is the overall message?
All tyrants end up defeated/all oppression comes to an end, we are all subject to time and face death and decay, no matter what you’ve done
‘I met a traveller from an antique land
opening sentence frames poem, The first line of this famous sonnet introduces ‘a traveller from an antique land’ whose identity Shelley purposefully does not reveal. The ambiguity of this opening line immediately creates a sense of mystery and intrigue.
‘Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,’
‘trunkless’ adj, theme of transience, lack of purpose, irony , massive size of statue but decays regardless
noun ‘desert’ - isolation, powerful figure surrounded by dust in solitude, in the grand scheme of things has no power: is irrelevant
‘Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,’
premodified noun phrase ‘shattered visage’
conconance ‘cold command’
The image of the head of the statue broken and lying in the sand is a metaphor for Ramesses’s fall from power – all that remains of this once so powerful ruler is this shattered legacy. More generally, the poem’s message is that mankind’s aspirations for power and domination are futile and no matter how hard they try the passage of time and Mother Nature will prevail and render their legacy insignificant.
‘Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:’
‘which yet survive’ - relative clause
conjunction ‘yet’ emphasises the effect time has on the destruction of reputations and fears
‘stamped on these lifeless things’ - participial phrase
The juxtaposition of survival and lifelessness deepens the poem’s theme of impermanence and decay.
-The sculptor skillfully captured Ramesses’s cruel facial expressions and, hence, the cruelness of his ‘heart that fed’ them, or in other words the merciless nature of his character. The fact that his cruelty is what has been captured and what remains on this ‘lifeless’ (highlighting mortality) statue emphasises that Ramesses’s legacy is not his power or triumphs but instead his cruelty and the destruction he left in his wake.
‘“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings.
Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!”’
epithet ‘king of kings’ highlight supreme rule and authority, hubris, elevating himself, almost mocking other leaders
The title is also used in reference to Jesus Christ several times in the bible, hence its inclusion here could be interpreted as Ramesses stating that he possesses godly power, beyond that of mortal comprehension.
He flaunts his ‘works’ (his kingdom and accolades), expecting them to survive long into the future, instilling awe and fear into whoever beholds them.
Arrogant, no standard capitalisation adj ‘Mighty’ perhaps to suggest even the ‘mighty’ aren’t as great as he.
‘Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
‘boundless and bare’ bilabial plosive or stop consonant suggests vastness
verb ‘remains.’ punctutaion to drive point of his lack of reign and his oppression
The former kingdom over which he ruled having proved powerless against the passage of time and resultantly dissolved to sand.
The statue’s insignificance compared to the ‘lone and level sands’ that ‘stretch far’ around it is a metaphor for Ramesses’s, and the entirety of mankind’s, insignificance compared to Mother Nature.
