Ozymandias

• “sneer of cold command”
• “look on my works, ye mighty and despair“
• ”lone and level sands stretch away”
• Who wrote ozymandias - Shelley
• Structure: blank verse - mixture of two type of sonnets - rhyme scheme is different - power fades away just like the sonnets power
• Themes:

  • power of humans vs nature
  • power of art
  • futility
• summary : ozymandias is a statue of a tyrant - symbol of greed and arrogance.

  human life, status and wealth are ephemeral (short lasting)

  nature isn’t - its enormous and eternal

  decaying statue sat in endless desert

  nature will outlast everything

  exposes insignificance of man

  nature shatters mankind’s hubris and regime as its force is not to be reckoned with
• AO3: romantic ideas - sublime power of nature is eternal and dominant over man

  Anti establishment (opposing people who rule over others unfairly)