Ozymandias and My Last Duchess

Ozymandias - summary

• Sonnet reflecting on the inevitavble decline of power and the hubris of ruler

• The speaker recounts a story told by a traveller about a ruined statue in the desert. Once a monument to a mighty king, all that remains are broken fragments and a boastful inscription

• Shelley critiques human arrogance, showing rulers’ power crumbles while nature endures timelessly

Ozymandias - context

• Inspired by Pharaoh Ramesses II’s statue excavated for the British museum

• As a Romatic Poet, Shelley rejects monarchy and question authoritian power

Ozymandias - form + structure

• Sonnet form - satirises Ozymandias’s desire for eternal legacy, highlighting the irony of his ruined power

• Loose rhyme scheme - creates a sense of disjointedness and decay, structurally reflecting the ruined state and the instability of Ozymandias’s authority

• Largely follows iambic pentametre, however Shelley uses enjambment and caesura to disrupt the flow, symbolising erosion of empire

“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

• Irony - Ozymandias’s triumphant proclamation is deeply ironic as the ‘works’ he boasts of have vansihed. The surrounding emptiness reveals the hollowness of political power and exposes the ruler’s hubris

• Shelley uses this stark contrast between the intended grandeur and the actual desolation to critique the illusion of permanence held by authoritarian figures

• Exclamatory sentence - adopts a tone of authority, but its ruined context, it highlights the erasure of Ozymandias’s legacy

• The line heightens the dramatic collapse of power into oblivion - Shelley exposes the fragility of human power and mocks delusions of permanence

“Boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away”

• Consonance - repeated plosive ‘b’ sounds in ‘boundless and bare’ and liquid ‘l’ sounds, in ‘lone and level’ produces a slow, lingering rhythm, echoing the stillness and expansiveness of the desert landscape

• This mirrors the emptiness left in the wake of Ozymandias’s fallen empire, reinforcing the idea that nature’s permanence eclipses human achievement

• Semantic field of desolation - evokes isolation, showing how time erases human power

“Sneer of cold command”

• Plosive Alliteration - repetition of the hard ‘c’ sounds in ‘cold command’ creates a sharp, forceful tone, echoing the ruler’s dictatorial nature

• Statue Imagery - visual imagery of the statue captures the sculptor’s ability to preserve the king’s cruelty in the stone, yet it is ironic that it is all that remains of Ozymandias’s legacy

• The damaged statue serves as a representation of the collapse of authoritarian rule, revealing that even the most imposing rulers fades into ruin

“Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck”

• Juxtaposition - the phrase ‘colossal wreck’ juxtaposes grandeur and destruction, encapsulating the poem’s core message that even the most imposing structures of power are destined to crumble

• This contrast highlights the emptiness of egotism and the futility (pointless) of rulers who seek immortality through physical monuments

• Simple sentence - ‘Nothing beside remains’ delivers a blunt finality, reinforcing irreversible loss and emptiness

My Last Duchess - summary

• The poem exposes hubris, as the Duke reveals jealously, control and implied murder

• Explores patriarchy and aristocratic pride through the dramtic monologue

My Last Duchess - context

• Browning perfected the dramatic monologue (poetic speech), exposing flawed, unreliable speakers through self-revelation

• The Duke of Ferrara shows ego (aristocratic pride) and commodification

• His control reflects patriarchy, where women upheld men’s honour and reputation

My Last Duchess - form + structure

• Dramatic monologue - first-person narrative addressed to a silent listener, where the speaker unintentionally reveals his obsessive and controlling nature

• Single, uninterrupted stanza - mirrors the Duke’s relentless control and authority, as his voice dominates the entire poem without interruption

• Rhyming couplets - the regular, tightly controlled rhyme scheme reflects the Duke’s obsessive need for order and control

“She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.”

• Pronoun Repetition - the repetition of the pronoun ‘she’ draws attention to the Duke’s obsessive focus on the Duchess, revealing the Duke’s controlling fixation and perceived loss of exclusive possession over the Duchess

• Hyperbolic Language - ‘her looks went everywhere’ is exaggerated, casting her innocent behaviour as indiscriminate and improper

• It reflects the Duke’s paranoia regarding the Duchess and her interaction with other men, justifying his oppressive actions

“Then all smiles stopped together.”

• Sibilance - the repeated soft “s” sounds create a sinister, hushed tone, suggesting secrecy and reinforcing the chilling finality of the Duchess’s fate

• Euphemism (indirect wording) - avoids explicit mention of violence. This makes the act seem cold, calculated, and disturbingly casual, revealing his lack of remorse

“I gave commands”

• Declarative statement - the blunt, confident tone shows the Duke’s absolute authority and reflects the patriarchal power he holds over the Duchess

• ‘Commands’ - reduces the murder to a simple order, trivialising the Duchess’s death and revealing the Duke’s cold, smug attitude and sense of entitlement

“That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall”

• Possessive pronoun - Duke immediately presents the Duchess as his possession, reflecting the objectification of women in a patriarchal society and his belief that he has complete ownership over her

• Symbolism - the portrait symbolises the Duke’s desire for absolute control and permanence, as the Duchess can now only ‘smile’ when he chooses to reveal her