Power Poems

Question 1

What context characterises “Ozymandias”?

Answer 1

Shelley was a Romantic poet interested in the sublime.
Inspired by reports of a large Egyptian statue head being reclaimed in a British museum shortly before the poem was published.
Legacy of Ozymandias (Rameses II) still lived on.
Ram(e)ses II: Ramses the Great.
Potentially in response to Napoleon, his rise and fall, and the Industrial Revolution.

Question 2

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone”

Answer 2

“Vast”: large and grand. Impressionable
“Trunkless”: can no longer be used for any purpose of modelling a person as the body is missing.

Question 3

What are the main themes in “Ozymandias?”

Answer 3

Transience of Power
Man vs. Nature

Power is presented as: corrupting, transient, fragile, erasable and futile.
Nature is presented as ephemeral, ever-changing, destructive and transformative.

Question 4

“Half sunk, a shattered visage lies”

Answer 4

“Half sunk”: eroded by sand. Destructive nature and transient power
“Shattered visage”: fragility of power. Broken face.

Question 5

“sneer of cold command”

Answer 5

Sneer: smile of contempt
Power is presented as corrupting.
Contemptuous, condescending attitude

Question 6

“its sculptor well those passions read”