Ozymandias -- Shelley
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 the 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.
posted by Brady Kelso @ 8:21 AM
1 Comments:
from Mylene Reyes and Homayra Yusufi:
Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on August 4, 1972 into an aristocratic family in Field Place, near Horsham in Sussex. His father, Timothy Shelley was part of the English Parliament. He wrote “Ozymandais” in 1818. Shelley drowned during a voyage back from Lerici on July 8, 1822. His body was buried in Rome.
o Theme:
• The theme is mortality and the transience of humanity.
o Structure:
• This poem is a sonnet for its fourteen lines and box-like structure.
• It is also an iambic pentameter. This is when there are five iambs, which is a metrical foot of two syllables one short and one long to a line.
• One example is in the second line:
Who said: / Two-vast / and trunk /less legs / of stone
• It does not have a rhyme scheme although some words such as land and sand do rhyme.
o Tone:
• The entire poem has a very reminiscent approach. In the beginning of the poem, when the traveler is describing the pieces of the desert and the antique land, the tone is nostalgic and melancholy. When the poem begins to illustrate the cold look of the king’s face and the words on the pedestal, the tone becomes very sharp. Then at the end it goes back to being melancholy and reminiscent when the narrator states that nothing else remains.
o Imagery:
• “My name is Ozymandias. King of Kings, Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!” This shows how powerful this king though he was. His aggressive words portray his belief in his own immortality. The words used such as “antique land, desert, sand, sunk, shattered, colossal wreck” show how nothing is eternal.
• Sand- signifies the fading away of existence because the sand gets rid of everything and all that is left of this great immortal king are pieces of a stature that will soon disappear into the dust.
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