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Transcript

OzymandiasPercy Bysshe Shelley

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general info

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title

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analysis

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literary devices

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Bibliography

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Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPlSH6n37ts&t=13s

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“Ozymandias” by Romantic the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was composed in 1817 as part of a sonnet competition with a friend, Horace Smith. The poem is thought to have been influenced by the British Museum’s acquisition of a fragmentary bust from a massive statue of Rameses II. Shelley first published “Ozymandias” in a London journal in 1818.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first published "Ozymandias" in the 11 January 1818 issue of The Examiner and included it in his book-length collection of poems Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems in 1819.

General Info

The TITLE

The title of the poem "Ozymandias" is the Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses (sometimes spelled Ramses) II, also known as Ramesses the Great (c. 1303 BCE – 1213 BCE). He was the third pharaoh of the Egyptian Nineteenth Dynasty and reigned from 1279 to 1213 BCE. He was the most important ruler of the period known as the New Kingdom and notable for his many military victories, his building numerous extravagant monuments and temples, and his bringing Egypt into a period of great prosperity and power.

What Is the Meaning Behind "Ozymandias"?

What message was Shelley trying to convey with the poem Ozymandias? The major theme behind "Ozymandias" is that all power is temporary, no matter how prideful or tyrannical a ruler is. Ramesses II was one of the ancient world's most powerful rulers. He reigned as pharaoh for 66 years, led the Egyptians to numerous military victories, built massive monuments and temples, and accumulated huge stores of wealth. He eventually became known as Ramesses the Great and was revered for centuries after his death. Throughout the poem, Ramesses's pride is evident, from the boastful inscription where he declares himself a "king of kings" to the "sneer of cold command" on his statue. However, "Ozymandias" makes it clear that every person, even the most powerful person in the land, will eventually be brought low, their name nearly forgotten and monuments to their power becoming buried in the sand. Although the poem only discusses Ozymandias, it implies that all rulers, dynasties, and political regimes will eventually crumble as well, as nothing can withstand time forever. At the time the poem was written, Napoleon had recently fallen from power and was living in exile, after years of ruling and invading much of Europe. His fate is not unlike Ozymandias's. When Ozymandias orders "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" he meant to cause his rivals despair over his incredible power, but he may have only caused them despair when they realized their ignominious end was as inevitable as his.

I met a traveller from an antique land 1Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies3, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command4 5 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read 5Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things6, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: 10 Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" 7Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck8, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

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Shelley's use of the phrase antique land reflects the Romantics' interest in the ancient and therefore exotic. Since the title of the poem represents the Greek spelling of the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, we know that Shelley is alluding to Egypt as the setting for the traveler’s tale.

Many of the rhymes Shelley employs in the poem are slant rhymes, which means that the paired words are not identical in their vowel sounds. Examples include "stone"/"frown", as well as "appear"/"despair." This flexibility allows for more options in diction, as well as a less formal tone.

'Shattered visage' shows the broken and unrecognizable face and how Ozymandias went from being such a powerful god, to nothing but an unrecognizable broken statue on the floor. This exacerbates the ephemeral power of being a god.

A sneer is a facial expression that conveys derision, contempt, or scorn, and the expression on the face implies that Ozymandias had enormous influence over but also little regard for his subjects. Additionally, the repetition of the harsh /k/-sound in C letters further emphasizes his harsh and domineering attitude and suggests the kind of environment in which he ruled.

With somber irony, Shelley praises the clever sculptor who gave immortality not to Ozymandias's glory but to the king's presumptuous conceit by perfectly capturing the sneer to convey Ozymandias’s arrogance and condescension.

A consistent theme of the Romantic poets is the mutability of human existence—in this case, the inevitable fall of the mighty into obscurity. Shelley, by juxtaposing the "sneer of cold command" with "these lifeless things," reminds his readers that even absolute power disappears into lifelessness and oblivion.

As a Romantic poet, Shelley emphasized the incredible power of nature and the frailty of humankind. The message he suggests is that the mighty ought to despair at how utterly forgotten Ozymandias has become. The desert and time have swallowed the vain pride of the ancient king, and the same fate awaits the powerful of today.

The statue, once a symbol of power and control, is now in the middle of a nameless expanse of desert, seen only by chance. The fact that the statue is in pieces emphasizes the hopelessness of striving for power and of believing that human power is permanent.

PoeticDevices

Sonnet

Alliteration

Apostrophe

Assonance

Enjambment

Irony

Sonnet

"Ozymandias" is a sonnet, which is a type of poetic structure. All sonnets, including "Ozymandias" are fourteen lines long and written in iambic pentameter. The iambic pentameter sounds more natural than many other rhythms, but it still has a purposeful enough rhythm to easily differentiate it from normal speech (even in the 1800s no one would naturally speak the way "Ozymandias" was written). Contrary to many other sonnets though, "Ozymandias" has an unusual rhyming scheme, following the pattern ABABA CDCEDEFE. Most sonnets follow the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA and CDECDE or CDCDCD. Sonnets have been a standard poetry format for a long time—Shakespeare famously wrote sonnets—and it would have been an obvious choice for Shelley and Smith to use for their competition since sonnets have a set structure but still allow the poet a great deal of freedom within that structure.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of a sound or letter at the beginning of multiple words in a sentence or paragraph.

There are several instances of alliteration in "Ozymandias" including the phrases "cold command" and " boundless and bare." The repetition in alliteration often makes a poem sound more interesting and pleasant, and it can also create a soothing rhythm in contrast to the tension caused by enjambment (see below).

In "Ozymandias" the apostrophe occurs in the inscription on the statue's pedestal: "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" This isn't being spoken to anyone in particular, just whoever happens to come across the statue. Apostrophe was particularly common in older forms of poetry, going all the way back to ancient Greece. Because Shelley was using an ancient Greek text as inspiration for his poem, he may have wanted to include poetic devices from that time period as well.

Apostrophe

An apostrophe is a poetic device where the writer addresses an exclamation to a person or thing that isn't present.

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel or diphthong sounds in one or more words found close together.

It occurs in the phrase "Half sunk a shattered visage lies." The short "a" sound in "half" and "shattered" is repeated. The "a" sound is actually repeated throughout the poem, in words like "traveller," "antique," "vast," and even "Ozymandias" himself. Like alliteration, assonance can be used to make a poem more interesting and enjoyable to listen to.

In "Ozymandias" there are numerous examples of enjambment, including "Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand," and "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare" In both examples, the line break occurs in the middle of a sentence. Enjambment is a way for the poet to build action and tension within a poem. The tension comes from the fact that the poet's thought isn't finished at the end of a sentence. Each line with enjambment is a mini-cliffhanger, which makes the reader want to keep reading to learn what happens next. Enjambment can also create drama, especially when the following line isn't what the reader expected it to be.

Enjambment

Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence beyond a line break, couplet, or stanza without an expected pause.

The Ozymandias meaning is full of irony. In the poem, Shelley contrasts Ozymandias's boastful words of power in with the image of his ruined statue lying broken and forgotten in the sand. Ozymandias might have been powerful when he ordered those words written, but that power is now long gone, and his boasts now seem slightly silly in the present time.

Irony

Irony is when tone or exaggeration is used to convey a meaning opposite to what's being literally said.

What Makes OZYMANDIAS a

RomanticPoem?

The main characteristics of the Romanticism were to glorify common life and to disregard the royalty, government and upper class, to glorify the beauty and power of Nature and to disregard human authority and earthly possessions. In the poem ‘Ozymandias’, P. B. Shelley has presented the ruined statue of Ozymandias, an Egyptian pharaoh who sought to glorify himself as immortal through his works and statues. But the poem depicts how that false human glory was ruined by the destructive power of Nature. The poem rather glorifies the sculptor, a commoner in comparison to the ruler. Poet says that the sculptor’s feeling is still alive in the face of the statue whereas the ruler has not survived the rule of nature. And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things Again, the description of the ruins of the statue brings a kind of nostalgia, feeling for the past and also a kind of mystery in the lone vast desert. All these are characteristics of romanticism. Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, … Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Bibliography Lentz, Vern B. and Douglas D. Short, 'Hardy, Shelley, and the Statues', Victorian Poetry, 12 (1974), 370-372 Miles, Josephine, 'Reading Poems', The English Journal, 52 (1963), 157-164 Morillo, John, Shelley's Contest-Winning Sonnet, Ozymandias, http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/morillo/public/examples/ozyscan.htm, accessed: 2014 (2013) Oldfather, C. H., Diodorus of Sicily, trans. by C. H. Oldfather, (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1935) <http://penelope.uchicago.edu.remote.library.dcu.ie/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus _Siculus/1C*.html> Rodenbeck, John, 'Travelers from an Antique Land: Shelley's Inspiration for "Ozymandias", Journal of Comparative Poetics, (2004), 121-148 Shelley, Percy B., 1792-1822, 'Feelings of a Republican on the Fall of Bonaparte', in (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1904), pp. 577 Shelley, Percy B., 1792-1822, 'Ozymandias', in (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1904), pp. 605 Stephens, Walter, 'Ozymandias: Or, Writing, Lost Libraries, and Wonder', (2009),