Ozymandias- Percy Shelly

• Context

  • shelley was a radical romantic poet who believed in using the power of nature to inspire and evoke fear and to build a spiritual connection of sublimity
  • Shelley was anti-monarchy and a pacifist and aimed his poems at those in power, seeking to ridicule their desire for greatness by showing the fickle nature of materialism
  • A topical piece of work as statue was just discovered
  • King george III could be inspo due to excessive military conflicts and tyranny
• Decay of power topic sentence

  Ozymandias by Percy Shelley communicates a sense of inevitability towards the breakdown of superstitious power, with judicious use of dramatic irony to convey this message
• Decay of power- ‘look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

  • “look on my works“ captures this sentiment that power is transient as the statue is situated in barren, featureless deserts
  • Irony further reiterated through “mighty” and “despair”
  • Imperative verb “Despair” serves to show how even after death ozymandias still believes in his hubris and entitlement to conqueror
  • Ironic as ozymandias would be in despair if he were to know his statue did not withstand the test of time
• Decay of power - “lifeless”

  • ozymandias hubris is the reason for his eventual downfall
  • Only remainders of his lust for power is the ”lifeless” statue
  • This personification may symbolise that despite his opulence and might the only remainders of his reign and damaging and destructive
  • Is a mockery on materialism
  • Shelley thusly berates those in power for believing it is eternal
• Sentence to link decay of power and power of nature

  Shelley contrasts the human emotions and hubris with nature, human nations of pride and omnipotence are pale In comparison to natures transcendence, exacerbating his egotistic belief that he could withstand nature, when in reality that was never the case
• power of nature topic sentence

  Shelley contrasts his portrayal of human power, particularly tyranical power, as insignificant and temporary through the portrayal of natures power and endless transcendence
• Power of nature - “boundless and bare” “lone and level”

  • alliteration To emphasise vast extent of nature
  • Human power is eroded and chipped away by time
  • Proves natures transcendence and power and shows futility of human power
  • “Boundless and bare” could also emphasise how everything that comes from earth, as such must cyclically return to earth
  • ozymandias’ power has returned to the Barron and endless desert it derived from in ancient egypt
• Form - sonnet

  • blend of Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonnets
  • Allows Shelley to simultaneously mock ozymandias’ lack of love and respect whilst also ridiculing his excessive hubris which led to love and infatuation for barbaric power
• Form - iambic pentameter

  • motif of control
  • Demonstrates frightful regularity of the oppression by those in power on those they rule
• Structure— enjambment

  • uses enjambment freely to contrast tight single stanza “antique land” and “who said”
  • Commenting on the illusion on freedom under a tyrannical, propaganda driven reign as enjambment it still restricted to some extent
  • Kurd be human desire to be free from oppressive control
• Structure - end stops

  • uses end stops in second half rather than enjambment
  • “Despair!” “Bare.” “Away.”
  • Hunan power is transient and semi-permanent and can be easily curtailed by natures omnipotence
  • The final sentence being end stopped asserts finality of natures control
  • Reaffirms only certainty regarding power is that of nature
  • “lone level sands” being the only element that will eternally “stretch away.”