MOCK UPON TYRANNY: AN ANALYSIS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY'S

"OZYMANDIAS" .

"Ozymandias" by P.B.Shelley is a sonnet, which was first published in the January of 1818
issue of The Examiner of London. Written in loose iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme
of ABAB CDCD EFEF, the sonnet explores the fate of the mortals and the ravages of time :
even the greatest of men, and the mightiest of empires are subjected to the changing wheel of
time and are impermanent and their legacies are fated to decay into oblivion. Even the most
powerful rulers of the past become a fading memory with the progression of time.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry
as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime,
but recognition of his achievements in poetry grew steadily following his death and he
became an important influence on subsequent generations of poets including Robert
Browning, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Thomas Hardy, and W. B. Yeats. Shelley's life was
marked by family crises, ill health, and a backlash against his atheism, political views and
defiance of social conventions. He went into permanent self-exile in Italy in 1818, and over
the next four years he produced what Leader and O'Neill call "some of the finest poetry of the
Romantic period". He died in a boating accident in 1822 at the age of 29.

The poem "Ozymandias" is one such piece of work by Shelley which well expresses his
radical ideology towards political tyranny and social segregation. The poet creates a dramatic
impression upon the readers through the very title of the poem. In the poem, Ozymandias is
actually referred to the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses-II who was also referred to as "The Great"
because he was considered as one of the greatest ruler of the ancient times, and during his
reign Egypt became a dominant military power and flourished commercially and expanded in
trade and economics. The poem titled "Ozymandias" apparently sounds like an ode to the
Egyptian pharaoh Ramses-II, celebrating his achievements and triumphing over his caliber as
a ruler. However, his achievements made him an arrogant, tyrant and ruthless ruler, who
looked down upon everything and everyone else and considered himself at the pinnacle. He
was filled with such a sense of narcissism that he was governed with the over-ambition of
attaining immortality and going beyond the changing fate of time. This led to the creation of
the poem "Ozymandias". The poem which apparently seems like an ode, eulogising the ruler
for his achievements, is rather a poem which mocks Ozymandias and his vain vanity and
over-ambition of wanting to out rule the ravages of time and attain immortality.

The poem tells about his encounter with a traveller, who talks about his exploration and gives
a description of the statue of Ozymandias. Ozymandias had his statue sculpted, so that even
after his death immortal and his legacy lives by. He challenged the changing fate of time and
aspired to go beyond the ravages of time. However, time proved him wrong and crushed his
vain vanity and over-ambition of wanting to out rule the law of nature by attaining
immortality, just the way Ozymandias's statue was crushed down to shambles, such that only
two large stone legs, lacking a torso, and the head sunken into the sands were remaining
back,
"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies…"

It is ironic how Ozymandias, or to say Ramses-II, was a ruler with such an inflated sense of
self that he looked down upon everything and everyone else. He placed himself at the highest
pedestal of glory, held his head high up, and considered himself at the zenith, but his statue
failed to reflect his legacy. The ruler might have held his head high but the head of his statue
was half sunken into the barren sands. The facial expression of the statue - a frown and
wrinkled lips, forms a commanding, haughty sneer. The expression shows that the sculptor
understood the emotions of the person the statue is based on, and replicated it vividly upon
the sculpture. The skilled hands of the sculptor conveyed the emotions of the haughty ruler so
precisely that the statue itself seems to be mocking the ruler and his tyranny,
"...And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed"

Upon the pedestal of the statue, it was engraved "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings".
This reflects the tyranny and the aristocratic nature of the ruler, who considered himself
superior to everyone else, above the common people, and better than the other rulers. But
now his statue lies half sunken, as shambles of the ruins and ravages of time, upon the barren,
levelled desert. He is no longer above the rest, but rather levelled down to the level of sands.
"Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The poem serves as a critique of political tyranny, over-ambition of humans, the vague
aspirations of mere mortals to attain immortality through subjugation, autocracy and vain
human vanity. Ozymandias was a great ruler of his time, which filled him up with such deep
seated vanity that he considered everything and everyone else inferior to him. Such was his
vanity that he looked down upon the spinning wheel of time and such was his ambition that
he wanted to out rule the changing fate of nature and time and attain immortality. This poem
criticises this very perception of mere mortals of wanting to go beyond the indispensable
elements of nature. The poem also celebrates the power of art and the artist to defeat time and
its ravaging impact. Only art is immortal, and through his art, an artist remains remembered.
Even when an artist dies, he is still alive, through his art. Thus, it is not tyranny and autocracy
and vanity that helps a person and his legacy to attain immortality, but rather art, which helps
a person to attain immortality, to be remembered by the world, and looked up to the legacies
left behind.
 WORK CITATIONS

Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry
Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias.

“Ozymandias.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Dec. 2022,

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias.

“Percy Bysshe Shelley.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Dec. 2022,

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley.

LitCharts. “Ozymandias Summary & Analysis by Percy Bysshe Shelley.” LitCharts,

www.litcharts.com/poetry/percy-bysshe-shelley/ozymandias.