Ozymandius - Percy Shelley

What is the poem about?

Ozymandius is a sonnet that concerns the discovery of a semi-destroyed and decaying statue of Ramesses II (Ozymandius). It shows how power - specifically human/political - is transient and ultimately nature and is more powerful than any human power. Also praises art’s ability to preserve the past.

What kind of poet was Shelley? What were his beliefs?

Shelley was a Romantic poet. He was strongly anti-monarchy, a pacifist, an atheist, anti-religion and supported social justice. He was inspired by the French Revolution and wanted to end the oppression of ordinary people.

What was the Romantic movement centered on?

Poets of the Romantic movement emphasized individualism and celebrated nature and the common man. They were anti-establishment and anti-powerstructures - anything that dictated your life.

What is the key idea of the poem?

Human power is transient compared to nature and time. A warning to all institutions of power that they will not last but their treatment of others and how artists portray them will.

Ozymandius themes:

• Transience of power

• Power of art

• Man vs Nature

What is the structure of the poem? How does it reinforce Shelley’s point?

Has an irregular rhyme scheme that breaks away from the sonnet form, enabling Shelley to imply how poetry & literature can defy tradition and give way to new power. Also reflects Shelley’s interest in challenging conventions - political & poetic.

Sonnets are typically love poems, could be argued that by making it a sonnet it is reflective of the pride Ozymandius (and all monarchs/rulers) have for themselves and the lack he has for his subjects. Shelley could also be mocking the vanity, egotism and hubris monarchs have.

“I met a traveller from an

antique land, Who said-”

Shelley uses a detached speaker to distance himself from the political message of his sonnet to freely comment on the monarchy through an allegory

Having the poem communicated through reported speech serves to trivialise the reign of Ozymandius.

‘antique’ - adgective suggest the place is old and steeped with history but also that it may be old-fashioned and irrelevant.

“Two vast and

Trunkless legs of stone //Stand in the desert”

The statue is barely standing, the rest is ruined and missing. Suggesting that it is being eaten away by time & the desert, a futile struggle to survive when nobody is around to care.

‘trunkless’ - lacks a torso, so lacks strength and solidity - human power is transient. The ‘legs’ are standing in the ‘desert’, surrounded by nature and overpowered by its vastness - nature is eternal.

“Half sunk, a

shattered visage lies”

image creates a sense of irony: a King who believed so strongly in his own power & superiority and tried so hard to present this image of greatness in his statue, has now been forgotten & destroyed by time. Only thing left is his ’visage’ that was meant to show he was unforgettable and unbreakable - now ‘shattered’ - unrecognizable.

“wrinkled lip and

sneer of cold command”

‘wrinkled lip’ conjures an image of a grimace of disgust & contempt - displaying the king’s disregard for his subjects and how he views them as inferior. ‘sneer’ verb is contemptuous/mocking smile, remark or tone. Connotes maliciousness & cruelty - presents the kings arrogance. Harsh repetition of ‘c’ sounds (consonance) in ‘cold command’ reflect the King’s callous lack of compassion for his subjects. Also shows Shelley’s disapproval of military exploits and the commands that initiate them - pacifist.

Shelley can use this to show the danger of a single individual having unlimited power invested in them, as it enables them to see others as inferior and therefore oppress them.

“Tell that its

sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive”

Whomever the sculptor was, he knew his subject very well, he has exceptionally captured the ‘passions’ of Ozymandius - his cruelty and hubris. Though Ozymandius is long dead, he exists through the creation of a mere sculptor - ‘yet survive’. The sculptor in this case is more powerful. There is an end to humans but the art of the individual is eternal.

“My name is

Ozymandius, king of kings: look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

This arrogant claim seems ironic to the reader as they only hear of Ozymandius through the report of a traveller. Like many leaders, Ozymandius perceives himself as omnipotent. In truth his power is transient and so are his ‘Works’. Exclamatory sentence ‘despair!’ seems silly in the face of time and desert - there is nothing to despair at…

It is significant that the inscription is all that has survived as it shows that while the power of humans is deteriorated by time, the power of words and their weight always remains.

“Nothing beside remains.

Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare”

Caesura allows for a double meaning: that ‘nothing’ is next to the statue at all. And that there is nothing left of Ozymandius’s empire, but the ‘remains’ of the statue. The fact that these broken ruins are all that is left of his reign illiustrates the temporary nature of human constructions and power-structures in the face of the ultimate power of nature/time. Equally the first meaning reinforces the irony of the statue’s inscription.

‘colossal wreck’ - could be a metaphor for Ozymandius’s ego - it has been wrecked by time. Alliteration in ‘boundless and bare’ truly underlines the absolute, eternal nothingness of the desert - it has no bounds and it lacks the culture and civilization that may have been there in Ozymandius’s time.

“The lone and

level sands stretch far away”

'Level’ - monotonous & featureless - no sign of his legacy. ‘Lone’ - isolated- statue is all that remains (also alliteration). ‘sands’ could be the literal sands covering the statue or the figurative sands of time that have covered the memory of Ozymandius. Dismissively deemed ‘far away’ - Ozymandius’s pursuit to extend and conquer is condemned to failure, the statue is in somewhere so distant and insignificant no one knows it exists but travellers.