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Ozymandias
Ozymandias
Ozymandias
Ozymandias
Comes from the Comes from the Greek
Greek word ‘Ozium’ word ‘mandate’ meaning
meaning air. to rule.
The title alone informs us that this is a poem about a ruler, someone with power.
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Octave
3 Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
4 Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
5 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
6 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
7 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
8 The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
9 And on the pedestal, these words appear:
10
11
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Sestet
12 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
13 Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
• Form: Sonnet, a fourteen-line poem metered in loose iambic pentameter.
• Rhyme scheme: unusual for a sonnet of this era; it does not fit a conventional
Petrarchan pattern, but instead interlinks the octave (a term for the first eight lines
of a sonnet) with the sestet (a term for the last six lines), by gradually replacing old
rhymes with new ones in the form ABABACDCEDEFEF. Although the rhyme scheme
isn’t completely regular it is quite powerful in places. For example, the final words
of line one and three (land / sand) rhyme and so do the first and last words of line
three (stand /sand). This use of rhyme adds emphasis and creates a powerful image
of the shattered statue. Similarly, the rhyme in lines 12 and 14 (decay / away) end
the poem with a sense of emptiness and destruction.
• Metaphor: The entire poem is a metaphor for the foolishness of a man who thinks
that anyone can harness time. Ozymandias boasted of his accomplishments, which
are now nothing but shattered in the sand.
• Tone: Ironic – He mocks the “King of Kings” and how what was once great is now in
shambles.
• Narrator: The poet Percy Shelley assumes the role of an auditor in the tale of a traveler.
• Themes:
Power and pride - All power is temporary, no matter how prideful or tyrannical a ruler
is.
Power of art – The art (statue) was made by a great sculptor and how the statue even
outlived Ozymandias.
Man and Nature – Nature has outlived him; his statue is made from natural resources
and that too has lasted longer than his life and his empire.