Ozymandias

• Explores the story of a narcissistic ruler in the Egyptian time, and how with the passing of time, he became forgotten

• Present nature as being more powerful and permanent than humans

Shelley

• Romantic poet (Involved in romanticism)
  • Movement in the late 1700s-1800s
  • Poets believed in emotions rather than reasons
    
    • Power of nature 
  • Disliked monarchies, absolute power, and oppression of ordinary people
    • His view is inspired by the events of French Revolution, where the monarchy is overthrown

Poem

• Based on Ramesses II, from Egypt
  • Had colossal building projects
    • Narcissistic, hubris, had a great sense of self-importance
• In Shelley's time, French revolution happened
  • Napoleon wants to take over Europe
  • Used this poem to show how history is repeating itself

• Sonnet

  • With a turning point (Volta) at line 9 like a Petrarchan sonnet

• Doesn’t follow a regular sonnet rhyme scheme and the Iambic Pentameter used is also often disrupted

  • Perhaps reflecting the way that human power and structures can be destroyed

• The story is a second-hand account

  • Distances the reader even further from the dead king

    • Emphasises the unimportance of Ozymandias

• Narrator builds up an image of the statue

  • Focusing on different parts of it in turn

• The poem ends by describing the enormous desert, which helps to sum up the insignificance of the statue

Power of nature

• Explores the theme of how powerful nature is, and how human power is only ultimately temporary

• The poem focuses on temporary nature of the ruler’s power.

  • There is nothing left of his “works”

  • Even his statue collapsed

Negative emotion-Pride

• Explores how pride can lead to arrogance and overconfidence

• Ozymandias

  • Presented as a ruler who abused power

    • Having a “sneer of cold command” and as arrogantly telling other rulers to looks at his works and “despair”

      • Suggests that

        • He thought everyone else was inferior to him

        • He treated his subjects badly

Irony

• Shelley described Ozymandias’s statue as a “shatter’d visage”

• There’s nothing left to show for his great civilization

• Ruined statue
  • Can be seen as a symbol of temporary nature of political power or human achievement

  • Shelley’s use of irony reflects 

  • His hatred of oppression

  • His belief that it’s possible to overturn the social and political order

    • Challenges

      • Readers to consider their own view of human achievements

        • Many people are similarly blind in their quest for power

Angry language

• Ozymandias stated that he’s the “king of kings”

• Sounds arrogant and powerful

• The tyranny of the ruler is suggested

• Later, in the end, Shelley changed to describe the dessert instead as “boundless and bare”

  • Emphasises the reality that all his achievements became insignificant when compared to the dessert

• Similarities first

• Differences second

• Message third

  • Reminds powerful people that their power is only temporary. Powerful people may wish to think that their power is immortal, but they are only deceiving themselves.