Ozymandias Notes

Ozymandias Notes
The title of “Ozymandias” refers to an alternate name of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II. In
“Ozymandias,” Shelley describes a crumbling statue of Ozymandias as a way to portray the transience
of political power and to praise art’s power of preserving the past.
o Summary of the poem :

o The speaker of the poem meets a traveller who came from an ancient land. He describes two
large stone legs of a statue, which lack a torso to connect them, and stand upright in the
desert.
o Near the legs the half buried in the sand is the broken face of the statue.
o The statue’s facial expression- a frown and a wrinkled lip- form a commanding, haughty sneer.
The expression shows that the sculptor understood the emotions of the person the statue is
based on, now these emotions live on, carved forever on inanimate stone.
o In making the face, the sculptor’s skilled hands mocked a perfect recreation of those feeling
and of the heart that fed those feelings and, in the process conveyed the subjects cruelty that
the statue itself seems to be mocking its subjects.
o The traveller then describes the words inscribed on the base of the statue, given by Diodorus
Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica, as "King of Kings am I, Ozymandias. If anyone would know
how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works."
THEMES OF THE POEM

o Transience of Power: The statue with the boastful Inscription stands in ironic contrast to the
decrepit reality of the ancient statue lying in ruins, however underscoring the ultimate
transience of political power. The poem critiques such power through its suggestion that
both great rulers and their kingdoms will fall to the sands of time. No amount of power can
withstand the merciless and unceasing passage of time. History is full of rise and falls of
empires.
o The Power of Art: The poem insists that nothing beside the shattered statue and its pedestal
remains, there is one thing that actually withstood the centuries: Art. It is perhaps the most
enduring tool in preserving humanity’s legacy. The fragments interpret and preserve the
king’s personality even after his death. It’s legacy and its failure only exists because of art,
therefore suggesting art as immortal.
o Man v/s Nature: The poems imagery suggests a natural world whose might is far greater
than that of humankind. The statue is trunkless, shattered, implies humanity’s relative
weakness. Nature has steadily overtaken a once great civilization and buried it.
POETIC DEVICES
1.Alliteration :
Two vast and trunkless legs
cold command
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
boundless and bare
lone and level sands stretch
2. Synecdoche
Substitution of a part to stand for the whole, or the whole to stand for a part.
The hand that mock'd them.
3.Metaphor: There is one extended metaphor used in the poem. The statue of Ozymandias
metaphorically represents power, legacy, and command. It clarifies the meanings of
the object and makes it clear that once the king was mighty and all-powerful. It also shows
that the sand has eroded the actual shape of the statue, representing the destructive power
of time.
4. Personification: Shelley has used personification that means to use human emotions for
inanimate objects. He has used personification twice in the poem. The fifth line “And
wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,” refers to the broken head of the statue. However,
the lifeless statue Ozymandias is referred to as a real person. The second example is in the
sixth line of the poem where “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read” shows as if the
statue is commanding the sculptor how to carve or express his emotions.
5. Irony: Irony is a figure of speech used to present the opposite meanings of the words.
Ozymandias’s description presents him as a mighty, great and fierce king but in reality, there
is nothing but a broken, lifeless statue. All living things eventually meet their creator and no
human is immortal , even their mighty stone statues and structures perish.
6. Imagery: Imagery is used to make the reader feel things through five senses. The poet has
used images involving a sense of sights such as two vast and trunk-less legs, shattered face,
wrinkled lip and desert. These images help readers visualize the status of the broken statue.

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Ozymandias Notes

o Summary of the poem :

THEMES OF THE POEM

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