Percy Shelley’s poem
Ozymadias is very emblematic of Romanticism in literature. It is rich in
imagery and serves as an allegory for the meaninglessness of political
ambition. The poem starts with the description of the ‘traveller from an
antique land’:
[2]Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
[3]Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
[4]Half sunk, a shattered visage lies…
The imagery in these lines is melancholic because a statue, symbol of fallen glory is being described – lifeless, distant, and with a shattered visage. The tone of the sonnet continues to be despairing in the lines that follow, and the talent of the sculptor who was able to capture the character of Ozymandias is also described:
[5]And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
[6]Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
[7]Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
[8]The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
[2]Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
[3]Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
[4]Half sunk, a shattered visage lies…
The imagery in these lines is melancholic because a statue, symbol of fallen glory is being described – lifeless, distant, and with a shattered visage. The tone of the sonnet continues to be despairing in the lines that follow, and the talent of the sculptor who was able to capture the character of Ozymandias is also described:
[5]And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
[6]Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
[7]Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
[8]The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
Albeit the tone is
melancholic, in [7] and [8] Shelley writes how Ozymandias’ passions still
survive because of the talent of the sculptor. It sounds paradoxical to survive
in a lifeless form, but the shattered visage still lies in the desert.
In the last five lines of the sonnet, one can see in them the elusiveness of the concepts of time and memory. They epitomize the irrelevance of the thirst for power because the words on the pedestal are gloriously narcissistic, but the statue is surrounded by nothing beside it.
[10]`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
[11]Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
[12]Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
[13]Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
[14]The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Although the poets were part of different literary movements, the ending reminded me of the concept behind Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay. According to PBS, that was one of the nicknames for Ramses II, “one of the most prolific builders of ancient Egypt (Clark & Tyson, Explore Ancient Egypt).” Ramses II was important for Egypt, the ‘gold,’ but it did not stay and in turn, now there is the colossal wreck that Shelley describes.
In the last five lines of the sonnet, one can see in them the elusiveness of the concepts of time and memory. They epitomize the irrelevance of the thirst for power because the words on the pedestal are gloriously narcissistic, but the statue is surrounded by nothing beside it.
[10]`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
[11]Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
[12]Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
[13]Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
[14]The lone and level sands stretch far away".
Although the poets were part of different literary movements, the ending reminded me of the concept behind Frost’s Nothing Gold Can Stay. According to PBS, that was one of the nicknames for Ramses II, “one of the most prolific builders of ancient Egypt (Clark & Tyson, Explore Ancient Egypt).” Ramses II was important for Egypt, the ‘gold,’ but it did not stay and in turn, now there is the colossal wreck that Shelley describes.
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