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COMPARISON BETWEEN OZYMANDIAS AND MY LAST
DUCHESS
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Shelley’s sonnet and Browning’s dramatic monologue explore ideas about power and
inequalities that reflect the times in which they were writing. In Ozymandias, Shelley
presents a once powerful ruler whose control and reign does not last, while Browning’s
Duke shows no sign of losing any of his power. In ‘My Last Duchess’, Browning criticises the
superiority, power and arrogance that many upper class Victorian men demonstrated over
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their wives, while Shelley’s poem seems to suggest that while rulers- such as George IV- may
seem all powerful, their rules will not last.
Both Ozymandias and My Last Duchess explore rulers who feel superior to those around
them. In Ozymandias, Shelley tells the story of a traveller who comes across a statue of an
ancient ruler, emphasising that the ancient ruler looked down on his people by writing
‘sneer of cold command’. This imagery helps the reader to imagine the facial expression of
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the statue, which gives the reader an indication of the kind of ruler Ozymandias was. The
alliterative ‘cold command’ implies that Ozymandias was a heartless and unfeeling ruler
who did not show any warmth towards his people. By telling the reader that the statue’s
facial expression is a ‘sneer’, Shelley suggests that not only that the ruler does not care
about his subjects, but he feels superior to them. Similarly, in My Last Duchess, Browning’s
Duke shows a visitor the portrait of his deceased wife, implying that he had her killed
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because she did not behave as he wanted. The poem, a dramatic monologue from the
Duke’s perspective, continually shows the Duke’s feelings of superiority to those around him
and to his wife. When the Duke declares, ‘I choose never to stoop’, Browning implies that
the Duke feels that he is more intelligent and important than his wife, and that he has the
power and luxury to ‘choose’ not to ‘stoop’ and lower himself to her level, rather than
discuss his feelings of jealousy with his wife. Browning repeats the verb ‘stoop’ in order to
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emphasise the Duke’s stubborn nature and feeling of superiority over his wife. In this way,
Browning may be criticising patriarchal Victorian society, where rich men often viewed
wives as part of their property rather than as equals. It is clear that in both poems, the
writers present rulers who believe they are far better than those around them. But while
Shelley’s ruler becomes a ‘wreck’ in the sand, Browning does not offer a glimpse of a world
without the Duke in power and suggests that he will continue to behave this way with his
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next wife.
As well as presenting their feelings of superiority, both poets also present rulers who are
arrogant. In Ozymandias, Shelley illustrates the arrogance of the ruler through the
inscription on his statue: ‘king of kings’. Not only did Ozymandias have a statue erected for
himself to show off his power and might, but he also chose to describe himself ‘king’ among
kings, implying that he is better than all other rules. This phrase is also used several times in
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the Bible to describe Jesus, the son of God, and through this allusion, Shelley emphasises
the total and ironic arrogance of Ozymandias, whose rule ends and whose power fades.
Shelley uses the arrogance of Ozymandias to criticise other leaders, such as King George,
who was king of England at the time Shelley was writing. The speaker in Browning’s poem is
also presented as arrogant when Browning has the Duke describe his ‘nine-hundred year
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