Ozymandius

• 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