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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley analysis (Grade 9)
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Indepth notes for the WJEC English Literature (9-1) specification.
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Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley (P.19)Narrative The poem describes the ruined statue, found in a desert, of a once great and powerful king. At the base
of the statue are the words: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty,
and despair!’
Contexts Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the English Romantic poets along with Wordsworth and Byron.
Shelley was thought to be ‘radical’ and this poem is about a statue of the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses
II who build extravagant temples to himself.
Themes Transience – We see the Arrogance – Despite the fact years Art – Like the culture it
once mighty Ozymandias, later this statue is crumbled and represents, this statue is
now “shatter’d” in a forgotten, the “king of kings” crumbled and long forgotten,
deserted desert – showing expressed such great hubris – but but ultimately more
the lack of transience in this appears baseless in light of the withstanding than the subject of
everything. decay. the art itself.
Literary Interpolated Narratives – The poem Dramatic Irony – Despite Ozymandias’s claim to be
Devices explores the apparent of might of this “king of all kings” the writer is informed his
“Ozymandias” through interpolated “works” surrounding the statue have been long
narratives. The better part of the narrative is covered by “lone and level sands”. To the reader, this
told through the perspective of “a traveller appears to be baseless and egotistical as well as
from an antique land” who is recounting presumptive of the self-pronounced “king of kings”.
the story to the poet. Inside the traveller’s Furthermore, the fact this mighty statue is experiences
story, he describes the interpolated narrative only through a recount from an ambiguous traveller,
of the words on the base of the pedestal. makes this story of the statue seem even less
impressive.
Symbolism - Through the symbol of the Synecdoche – This is the use of one aspect of an
statue’s size with its “vast… legs of stone” entity to describe a whole. This can be seen in using
we understand Ozymandias’ self-importance. the “visage” or the head of the statue to describe the
However, the fact the statue is now crumbled, whole statue as “shatter’d” state. Furthermore, the
his power appears all but gone. “hand” is used to describe the sculptor.
Key While most of the poem describes a Through the ambiguity of warning other “Mighty”
Language statue, the traveller makes a point of figures to look upon his works could be Shelley
telling us that Ozymandias's "passions" expressing the relevance of the remaining mightiness (or
still survive: they are "stamp'd" on the the lack thereof) of the once “king of all kings” to
statue, giving all those who view the present and all future presumptuous leaders.
statue a sense of what Ozymandias's Interestingly, this seems to predict the short-lived reign
disposition was like, with a “sneer”, of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. While Hitler
“frown” and “wrinkled lip” the readers assumed he was building the basis of a Germany that
get the sense he was not a very pleasant would last thousands of years, his ideas died with him
person. This matches the irony of the when Germany lost the war in 1945. The applicability of
arrogantly-chiselled message surrounded this piece allows it to work as an allegory.
by ruin.
Form and The poem is a sonnet written in pentameter, although it refuses to conform to an iambic pentameter. It
Meter starts with a regular rhyme scheme before switching up before reverting for a sense of finality on the
final rhyming couplet.
Structure The juxtaposition of the writing at the base of the pedestal and the traveller’s description of the
dessert, “stretch[ing] far away” expose the irony and misplaced arrogance in Ozymandias’ words,
following them directly as if to dismiss their importance.
Compare Hawk Roosting by Ted Hughes To Autumn by John Keats
s with…
Quotations to remember
I met a traveller from an antique land Half sunk, a visage lies, whose frown
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone And wrinkedlip, and sneer of cold command,
Stand in the desert…
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Look on my words, ye Mighty, and despair!’ Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
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