Power And Conflict Poetry - Ozymandias Flashcards
Who wrote Ozymandias?
Percy Bysshe Shelley
What is the big idea?
Inevitable downfall of all rulers to time and nature. Nothing lasts forever. Pride and hubris cannot conquer nature and time.
What is the structure?
Loose iambic pentameter
Sonnet - 14 lines - love poem - power
Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Image of time and nature eroding power and and statue
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies
Unrecognisable - no purpose
Sneer of cold command
Synaesthesia - powerful, arrogant, hubris
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed
Abused his power
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Tone - hubris - pride and arrogance
Nothing beside remains.
Caesura - final
Colossal wreck
Metaphor - ego/ pride
The lone and level sands stretch far away
Image - the sands outlast the statue and the sands juxtapose the temporary statue
Enjambment
Time
