ANALYSIS FOR OZYMANDIAS

• “The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed”

  • The sculptor feeds off of the king
  • Mock means to create an imitation but it also means to parody or to critique
  • Notice the imbalance made due to the “hand” which is mechanical and the heart which is emotional.
• “Boundless and bare”

  • Acting crudely will lead to one’s sociological and psychological landscape being boundless and bare
  • Could refer to his ego
• “The lone and level sands stretch far away”

  • Metaphorical levelling as no Matter how rich and powerful we are we are equal in death and have nothing
  • Sand is a tool for physical distance, shows the persistence of time
• “My name is Ozymandias king of kings”

  • Biblical Allusion (+Irony as Shelly was an atheist)
  • The only line with the kings name- has an extra syllable showing his megalomania
• “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone “

  • Emphasises the lack of heart / connection between his body and brain
  • Shows that he had presence but no insight to recognise his limitations
• CONTEXT:

  • may have been written in anger of king George III s loss of control over America. Warning the king that his legacy could be the same as Ozymandias if he continued to fail; he also attacks the same king in another poem of his entitled “England in 1819”
  • Shelley got expelled from Oxford for publishing and spreading atheistic pamphlets
  • Rameses the second an Egyptian prophet, was believed to be the king against Moses’ Exodus (irony as the water could be the same as the sand, irony through freedom)