Poetry

• Ozymandias was the Greek name for the Pharaoh Ramses ll, believed to be the pharaoh of Moses' Exodus
• Ozymandias' statue had just been discovered at the time of writing, making it a topical piece of work
• King George II may be seen as being the inspiration for Ozymandias due to the excessive military conflicts and tyranny during his reign
• Ozymandias


  • Communicates a sense of inevitability towards the breakdown of power
  • Uses judicious use of dramatic irony throughout the poem to convey this message
• "Look on my works": 'Encapsulates the sentiment of the inevitability of the breakdown of power'
• "Despair"


  Serves to show how even after death Ozymandias still sees himself as worthy of commanding people, but also to communicate the irony that it is Ozymandias who would despair upon the realisation that his works have not withstood the test of time
• Ozymandias personifies the statue

  Creates a negative semantic field of vocabulary around power with the end goal of showing the detrimental impact of a lust for power
• Negative vocabulary


  • wrinkled, shattered, frown, sunk, sneer
• "Look on my works. ye mighty, and despair"

  "nothing beside remains"
• Bathos (anti-climax)


  Shelley uses it to criticise the fickle nature of power
• Contrast between "works" of Ozymandias and the desolate desert

  Serves to show how regardless of the magnitude of power one holds, particularly tyrannical power, it is not sempiternal (forever-lasting)
• Ozymandias had pride and vanity in his appearance and "visage"


  Ordered it to be encapsulated in a statue which instead captured his cruelty and indifference
• Ozymandias' "visage" has been broken and battered by time and nature

  Shelley may be suggesting that the image of power he exuded during his reign was little more than a cover for the true vulnerability of his authority
• Shelley was an atheist and anti-monarchist
• Shelley contrasts his portrayal of human power, particularly tyrannical power, as insignificant and temporary


  With his portrayal of nature's power as endless and transcendent
• "boundless and bare" and "lone and level"


  Alliteration serving to emphasise the vast and mighty extent of nature
• Human power is eroded and chipped away by time


  Nature enjoys transcendent power, serving only to show the futility of human power
• Desert setting


  • Culturally bankrupt and empty, serving to show how human power pales in comparison to the power of nature and time
  • Sand is linked with time and the passage of it, the statue is literally covered up by the desert sand and Ozymandias' memory is figuratively covered up by the sands of time
• Nature's everlasting power


  Contrasted within the poem with the fickleness and short-life of human power
• "Boundless and bare"


  Echoes the sentiment that everything has come from the earth and as such must return to it; Ozymandias' power has returned to the barren and endless desert from where it derived from
• Ozymandias' hubris (excessive pride)


  • Could be seen as the reason for his eventual downfall, with the only remainder of his lust for power being the "lifeless" statues left behind after his reign
• Statue is personified and described as being "sneer[ing]" and "cold"


  May be suggesting that despite all of Ozymandias' opulence (great wealth) and might, the only sentiments that survive from his reign are damaging and destructive
• Shelley's poem contains shades of the saying "absolute power corrupts absolutely" by showing how an intense amount of power is synonymous with an intense amount of corruption
• Shelley contrasts human emotions in Ozymandias with nature


  Human notions of pride and omnipotence (all-powerful) are pale in comparison to nature's transcendence- exacerbating his ego that he believed his tyrannical power could withstand nature, when in reality it was never destined to last
• Sonnet form


  Traditionally a way of writing love poems, therefore by making the statue the focus of the poem, Shelley could be making it an object of love and respect. This sentiment contrasts with the content of the poem, which in actuality ridicules the statue
• Sonnet form


  Allows Shelley to simultaneously mock Ozymandias' lack of love and respect, but to ridicule his excessive hubris that resulted in this infatuation and love with barbaric power
• Blend of Petrarchan (14 lines) and Shakespearean (irregular rhyme scheme) sonnet


  Perhaps as a way of showing how even old ideas, such as everlasting power, can be changed and evolved
• Iambic pentameter


  Used as a motif of control, demonstrating the frightful regularity of the oppression by those in power on those they rule. Its use so regularly may also suggest that there is no way to break free- they are constrained by the oppressive tyrant that rules them
• Contrast between the fact that the poem is in one stanza with its irregular rhyme scheme


  The irregular rhyme scheme suggests freedom and lack of oppression whereas the single stanza connotes tight control coupled with a lack of individual expression
• Enjambment


  • Used freely throughout the poem, in order to contrast with the tight one stanza that the poem is structured in
  • May be Shelley commenting on the illusion of freedom under a tyrant's reign as all the enjambment in the poem is still constrained
  • May also be Shelley commenting on the human desire to be free despite the constraints placed on them by oppressive rulers
• Increase in end stops toward the second half of the poem


  • Could symbolise how human power is transient and semi-permanent- it is easily curtailed by nature's omnipotence
  • The last line adhering to this idea as it creates a sense of finality with the full stop after "away" Shelly reaffirms how the only element of certainty there is regarding power, is that of nature
• London uses more frequent end stops, replicating the bleakness and forthcoming of endings
• MLD uses more caesura, replicating the Duke's insincerity and obsession with himself
• Blake critiques the oppression and control abused by authorities in this time
• The Duke is an example of those who benefitted within this time, his status and hierarchical place in society making him exempt from responsibility- an idea Blake was scathing of
• Both poems are critiques of the social injustice that pervades history as a consequence of these institutions of power
• Chartered


  Restricted, referring to rights and privileges
• Mind-forged manacles


  Metaphorical chains that confine individuals to the misery and oppression imposed by the authorities
• Blake was anti-establishment (government, church etc) and was celebratory regarding the rise of democracy within the French revolution- he wanted the same liberation for the UK
• Blake was a Christian but opposed the established church as he saw the hypocrisy within it and its oppressive nature; he vehemently opposed the idea of the church supporting the people, he believed it did the opposite