POEMS FOR STYLISTIC ANALYSIS SEMESTER 6

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Ozymandias Analysis

Symbols, Imagery, Wordplay

Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you travel any further,
please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Never fear,
Shmoop is here. Check out our...
Form and Meter
Sonnet in Pentameter"Ozymandias" takes the form of a sonnet in iambic pentameter. A
sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, whose ideal form is often attributed to the great Italian poet
Petrarch. The Petr...
Speaker
There are several different voices in this poem that put some distance between us and
Ozymandias. First there is the speaker of the poem, you know the guy who meets the traveler
from an "antique la...
Setting
This poem has several settings. It begins with a strange encounter between the speaker and a
traveler from an "antique land" (1). We have no idea where this rendezvous takes place,
which is very we...
Sound Check
"Ozymandias" sounds a lot like the conclusion of a Shakespearean tragedy; the final lines of
the poem are especially reminiscent of something you might hear as the curtain is about to
fall at the e...
What's Up with the Title?
"Ozymandias" is an ancient Greek name for Ramses II of Egypt. It is actually a Greek version
of the Egyptian phrase "User-maat-Re," one of Ramses's Egyptian names. Why not just call
the poem "User-...
Calling Card
Long, Complicated SentencesShelley loved to write really long sentences, and this poem is
no exception. The second complete sentence, which begins in line 3, is a good example. The
sentence has a l...
Tough-O-Meter
(2) Sea Level "Ozymandias" is a relatively straightforward poem; there aren't many strange
words, except for "mock'd." At times the syntax can be a little tricky; for example, the first
eight lines...
Brain Snacks
Napoleon tried to steal the statue that inspired "Ozymandias" and left a hole in its right side.
(Source)Shelley was part of a larger group of friends that frequently engaged in sonnet-
writing cont...
Sex Rating
GThis poem doesn't really have much to do with sex.
Shout Outs
Literature, Philosophy, and Mythology DiodorusSiculus, Historical Library Book 1, Chapter
4 (Lines 10-11)HistoricalReferencesOzymandias, a.k.a. Ramses II of Egypt (Lines 10-11)