Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe
Shelley
•
•
Born 4 August 1792 (Sussex, England)
Studied at Eton and Oxford, where he was
bullied  books and clothes were torn.
• 1811  expelled from Oxford; Eloped and
married Harriet Westbrook (16) – two children
(son Ianthe and Charles); marriage collapsed,
ran away with Mary Goldwin (16) in 1814
married her in 1817, after Harriet drowned
(child – Percy Florence)
• Involved in the Romantic Era Movement 
reaction to Industrial Revolution, moving back
to natural phenomenon
• Ideologies  athesim, vegetarianism, free love,
and political radicalism
• Died (drowned in sailing accident) on 8 July
1822 (Lerici, Italy)
Ozymandias
I met a traveller 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 these 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.

 Ozymandias
– Information
• 14 lined poem  sonnet
– Doesn’t conform to neither Elizabethan not
Petrarchan style
• Rhyme scheme: ABABACDEDEFEF
– Made up of seven sentences in total

• Ozymandias – Greek name for the Egyptian

monarch Ramses II (13th Century BCE) who is
said to have erected huge statue of himself
 Ozymandias
Poem shows that tyranny doesn’t last; warns that people of power
will one day be forgotten, too

Person roaming lands Ancient lands

I met a traveller from an antique land
Big/huge Legs that do not have torso of body (trunk) to carry
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Is alone/ deserted in the desert

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half-buried broken face
What his face looks like
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
 Looks and believes to be
superior to all
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Sculptor read and captured
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read expressions well
Expressions survived, living on pieces of stone
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
Hand mocked, showed power and arrogance
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed.
Heart gave meaning and life to people, fed
and nourished them
IRONY – pedestal shows power
and majesty, but nothing now The statue represents Ozymandias
- Name means:
remains
- Ozium = to breathe air
- Mandias = mandate/rule
And on the pedestal these words appear:  Ruler of Air/Nothing
Important person; shows power,
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: influence over people of his day
Kingdom/ name Lose hope “look at my work, my name you who
thinks yourself as ‘mighty’ and you will
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ lose all hope’
Negative connotation  kingdom no longer exists
Rotted away/deteriorated
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
huge Statue deteriorated too Kingdom now sand, vast
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare emptiness/ without an end

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

King of ‘nothing’ /
‘nothingness’  immortal Ozymandias, being ‘the ruler of air’ gives sense
that ‘nature’ never disappears, no matter how
often mankind tries to adjust it. It is ‘air’/’nature’
that represents immortality, not mankind or
mankind’s possessions (i.e. statue)