Lecture notes
Ozymandias Poem analysis
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Poem is a metaphor portraying the crumbling statue of Ozymandias Ozymandias’s works have crumbled andto temporary political power and it praises art’s ability to preserve disappeared, his civilization is gone, all has been
the past. Alluding to the point that art and language outlast the turned to dust by the destructive power of history.
legacies of power.
Alternate name for Pharoah Ramses II
Ozymandias
Egypt
Nostalgia makes this more of a story than a poem, from the “I” POV.
assonance I met a traveller from an antique land,
The traveller has not seen the statue for themself.
huge bodyless
Who said- “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert….Near them, on the sand, He made everyone believe if they did not act according
face to his will or command, he could have them punished.
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, This highlights his arrogance and his condescending
Smug smile alliteration
behaviour with others. Shows his pride as a ruler.
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, The sculptor had managed to carve the expressions
of Ozymandias ruling perfectly in stone. The
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read emotions still survive in the lifeless statue.
alliteration Caesura breaks the meter and emphasises “stamp”
Which yet survive, stamped on the lifeless things, IRONY: The passions have only outlived the living
Objects of Synecdoche of Ozymandias hand and heart because they are carved in lifeless
“survive” The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; things. his hands show that the pharaoh mocked
his people, yet his heart was not all bad: he fed
Volta And on the pedestal, these words appear: and cared for his people (sense of pity)
The pharaoh believed that he was so powerful and the greatest of rulers.
→ Dichotomy.
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; The observers should not look upon the statue with admiration
His enemies but should rather cower in fear when they observe him. They
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! must be aware of his powerful nature.
IRONIC: these great works have collapsed and lie in ruins
Tone of pity
Nothing besides remains. Round the decay everywhere, and few can even remember who Ramses II was.
alliteration
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
alliteration The traveller almost seems to be mocking the ruler. The
The lone and level sand stretch far away.” desert has intruded and destroyed even the last symbols of
Sense of isolation. The sand is lacking the pharaoh's power. The poem’s theme emerges in these
vegetation and people. This was once a lines: all leaders will eventually pass, and all great
populated land during the time of the pharaoh. civilizations will eventually turn to dust. There is an idea of
faded glory.
STRUCTURE:
• Petrarchan Sonnet with a
Shakespearean rhyme scheme.
• The “broken” sonnet can be read as an
echo of the broken statue that is being
described.
• The shifting meter in the poem highlights
the broken statue.
• The poem does not include what the
speaker thought about the traveller,
Ozymandias, or the broken statue. The
speaker distances the reader from what
is being told.
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