Cards (28)

  • Shelley: '"visage': Shelley shows Irony that the king had so much pride and vanity in his appearance, that he ordered it to be encapsulated which captured cruelty and indifference
  • Shelley: 'Shattered' &'lies': irony powerless, cannot withstand the power of nature'
  • Shelley: "Lies" statue has become waste, works have been destroyed
  • Maybe Shelley does this to show that just the works to show power will be forgotten and destroyed
  • Shelley's message is that man's power is transient
  • Shelley: '"a shattered visage lies"'
  • Decay of power
    The idea that power and influence eventually fades and is destroyed
  • The text discusses the decay of power
  • "lies" is ambiguous. Possibly Shelley is commenting on the half truths people in power (establishment)tell to justify their actions.
  • The statue is situated in a barren and featureless desert
  • Mighty and despair
    Imperative verbs
  • The imperative verbs show that even after death, Ozymandias still sees himself worthy of commanding which shows hubris
  • Ironic: The poem tells others to despair of greatness, but Ozymandias also despairs at his lack of power and that his works wouldn't stand the test of time
  • 'Ozymandias' was written during the Napoleonic wars, when Britain was at war with France.
  • In 'Ozymandias', Shelley uses the statue of Ozymandias to represent Napoleon. The poem can therefore be seen as a political statement about the downfall of Napoleon and his empire.
  • Enjambment: 'antique land'/'who said'
  • Enjambment is used to contrast the tight one stanza that the poem Is structured in
    • Could be Shelley commenting on the illusion of freedom under a tyrant's reign as an enjamoment in the poem is constrained.
    • Could be Shelley saying that there's a human desire to be free despite constraints placed on them by oppressive rulers.
  • End Stops
    Shelley uses more end stops towards the end of the poem "(despair!" "bare." and "away."
  • Symbolizes transient and semi-pernament, it is easily curtailed by natures omnipotence.
  • End stop: Creates a sense of finality (last line) after 'away.'
  • Boundless and bare' and 'lone and level'
    • Alliteration: emphasise the vast and mighty extent of nature. Humans- power eroded and chipped away by time, nature enjoys transcendent power. → shows futility human power
  • Desert
    wasteland that is culturally bankrupt and empty
  • Boundless and bare': ein ressentiment that everything is from the earth so it must return to it. Ozy's priver has returned to the barren and endiers desert from wheme it came from.
  • Sonnet
    • Blend of Petrarchan and Shakespearean sonner
    • Allows shelley to mock lack of love and respect Ozy has. Ridicule his excessive hubris that has resulted in this infatuation and love with barbaric (tyrannical) power.
    • Iambic Pentameter: uses as a motif of control, demonstrate frightful regularity of the oppression by those in power over citizen
  • lifeless' Decay of power
  • Only reminder for his lust of power and wealth after death.
  • Personification-ozy's oppulence and might the only sentiments that survive are damaging and destructive.
  • "Look on my Works ye Mighty and Despair!" - Ozymandias