Ozymandias- Percy Bysshe Shelley

THEMES

- Power of humans
- Power of nature
- Negative emotions- pride
- (Negative emotions- anger)

Power of humans
"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert."

• vast juxtaposed by trunkless- indicates pervading theme: seeming power is undermined
• sibilance
• “stand” being enjambed lacks defiance, strength, assertive, strong-willed
• enjambment followed by caesural pause- distance between Ozymandias’ ephemeral power & size of the desert
• statue’s lack of body & therefore lack of heart.
lack of connection between his body and brain. Ozymandias had presence, but no insight or intellect to recognise his limitations.

Power of humans
Power of nature
“Half sunk, a shattered visage lies”

• nature reclaiming
• “sunk”- cacophonic ‘k’ - face disempowered
• “shattered” - onomatopoeic, descriptive verb- ephemeral nature of humanity
• celebratory tone regarding O’s broken statue and power
•"visage"- pretense, pretentious

Power of humans
Negative emotions- anger
"frown", "wrinkled lip", "sneer of cold command"

• aggressive actions-s.f. of aggression and lack of empathy
• consonance- cacophonic, lack of love, focus on hubris, self-aggrandisement, command- autocratic

Power of humans
"lifeless things"

• Shelley celebrating O’s death- nature outlives mankind
• “things”- lack of legacy and power- ambiguous- irrelevant

Power of humans
(Negative emotions- pride)
"hand that mocked them and the heart that fed"
"pedestal"

• syntactic parallelism- autocratic power
• "pedestal"- authority, pride

Power of humans
"Ozymandias, king of kings"
"ye Mighty, and despair!"

• using his name in Greek undermines and mocks his power
• hubris, arrogance
• deified- living god
• condescending to other powerful people

Power of nature
"Nothing beside remains."

• Shelley celebrating O's impermanence
• simple, short sentence & caesural pause- isolated, short-lived, ephemeral

Power of humans
“decay of that colossal wreck”

• metaphorical- O himself- comment on his leadership
• literal wreck of the statue

Power of nature
“boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

• plosives emphasise vast space around O and how lonely he is in death
• diatribe (strongly spoken)
• insignificance of man- size of nature vs humans
“boundless” no limits
• s.f. of isolation- size/scope of nature and MINUTAE (very small) of humans and human influence
• "far"- the colossal power of nature compared to man's minutae of influence

Power of humans
"I met a traveller from an antique land"

• deliberately ambiguous
•applicable to any autocratic leader
• "antique" - fragility, out of place- criticism of how Egypt was run- autocracy is outdated- kamikaze (Hirohito)