ozymandias quotes

“antique land”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION, OPPRESSION AND INEQUALITY

• Egypt is referred to as an 'antique land' due to its failure to promote its legacy, caused by the detrimental effect of Ozymandias' corruption of the natural land and Egypt's population

“wrinkled lip”

• links to themes: OPPRESSION AND INEQUALITY

• Conjures imagery of disgust and contempt - the combination of Ozymandias' antipathy and his intrinsic superiority complex amalgamate to create a consequential mixture allowing Ozymandias to manipulate nature and his subjects without absorbing the moral consequences

“shattered visage lies”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION

• Illustrates the intrinsic sense of irony as Ramses (the individual Ozymandias is based on) believed so strongly in his own superiority that he created an everlasting statue that has later been consigned to forgotten history

“look on my works”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION, OPPRESSION AND INEQUALITY

• Ozymandias' ironic statement calls to the blinding nature of human power, its corruptive elements depriving humans of reasoning, morality and empathy

  • Ozymandias wrongly expects his legacy and empire to maintain its integrity, despite his ill relationship with his subjects and the natural world

“lone and level”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION, POWER OF NATURE

• Monotonous alliteration of this statement calls to the lack of vibrancy and sense of decline and dilapidation of Ozymandias' statue and wider legacy, highlighting the fate of all materialisations of human power that disrupt the flow of nature

“far away”

• links to themes: HUMAN POWER AND CORRUPTION, POWER OF NATURE

• Links to the statue's insignificance, unrecognisable to most, connoting that Ozymandias' pursuits of everlasting infamy are condemned to an eternity of insignificance, materialising both in Ozymandias' lack of presence within historical evidence and the destruction of the statue by natural erosive processes

AO3

• written in 1817

• ROMANTIC MOVEMENT

  • Shelley was part of the Romantic Movement

  • in the Romantic Movement, poets would protest the present/future of mankind by returning to the past and rejecting institutions of power, using poetry to spread messages and political ideas

• HISTORICAL INFLUENCES

  • Ozymandias refers to Ramses II, an Egyptian Pharaoh (1279-1239 BC)

  • the statue of Ramses II was discovered at the time of Shelley’s writing - Shelley was challenged to write about the statue’s discovery

  • Ramses II is remembered for his tyranny and military exploits

    • this creates a parallel link between Ramses and the current English monarch: King George III, as King George III was a tyrant, known for his oppression and military exploits

    • this placed King George III against Shelley, who was a pacifist