Percy Bysshe Shelley
Summary of the poem
The narrator meets a traveller who tells him about a statue standing in the middle of the dessert
It's a statue of a king who ruled over a past civilisation. His face is proud and he arrogantly boasts about how powerful he is in an inscription on the statue's base.
However, the statue has fallen down and crumbled away so that only the ruins remain.
Form, Structure and Language
Form
Structure
Language of power
Angry language
The poem focuses on the power of Ozymandias, representing human power. However his power has been lost and is only visible due to the power of art. Ultimately, nature has ruined the statue, showing that nature and time have more power than anything else.
The poem is a sonnet, with a volta at line 9 like a Petrarchan sonnet. However, it doesn't follow a regular sonnet rhyme scheme, perhaps reflecting the way that human power and structures can be destroyed. It uses iambic pentameter, but this is also often disrupted. The story is a second-hand account, which distances the reader even further from the dead king.
The narrator builds up the image of the statue by 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.
The tyranny of the ruler is suggested through aggressive language.
The feelings and attitudes in the poem
Arrogance
Power
Pride
The ruler was proud of what he'd achieved. He called on the other rulers to admire what he did
Context
Shelley was a "Romantic"poet- Romanticism was a movement that had a big influence on art and literature in the late 1700s and early 1800s. "Romantic" poets believed in emotion rather than reason, they tries to capture intense experiences in their work and particularly focused on the power of nature . Shelley also disliked monarchies, absolute power and the oppression of ordinary people. His radical political views were inspired by the events of the French Revolution.
The inscription shows that the ruler believed that he was the most powerful ruler in the land- nobody else could compete with him. He also thought that he was better than those he ruled.
Human civilisations and achievements are insignificant compared to the passing of time. Art has the power to preserve elements of human existence, but it is also only temporary.