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Ozymandias (1818)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Story
• The narrator meets a traveller who tells him about a statue standing in the middle of the desert.
• It’s a statue of a king who ruled over a past civilisation.
• His face is proud and he arrogantly boasts about how powerful he is in an inscription on the statue’s base.
• However the statue has fallen down and crumbled away so that only the ruins remain.
Structure
• The narrator builds up an image of the statue in the octet by focusing on different parts of it in turn.
• The poem ends by describing the enormous desert in the sestet, which helps to sum up the insignificance of the
statue.
Language
• Irony: There’s nothing left to show for the ruler’s arrogant boasting or his great civilisation. The ruined statue can
be seen as a symbol for the temporary nature of political power or human achievement. Shelley’s use of irony
reflects his hatred of oppression and his belief that it is possible to overturn social and political order.
• Power: The poem focuses on the power of Ozymandias, representing human power. However, this power has
been lost and is only visible due to the power of art. Ultimately, nature has ruined the statue, showing that nature
and time have more power than anything else.
• Anger: The tyranny of the ruler is suggested through aggressive language.
• Pride: The ruler was proud of that he’d achieved. He called on other rulers to admire what he did.
• Arrogance: The inscription shows that the ruler believed that he was the most powerful ruler in the land – nobody
else could compete with him. He also thought he was better than those he ruled.
• Art: Human civilisations and achievements are insignificant compared to the passing of time. Art has the power
to preserve elements of human existence, but it is also temporary.
Form
• The poem is a sonnet, with a volta at line 9, like a Petrarchan sonnet.
• However, it doesn’t follow a regular sonnet rhyme scheme, perhaps reflecting the way that human power and
structures can be destroyed.
• It uses iambic pentameter, but this is also often disrupted.
• The story is a second-hand account (an elusive framing device to frame the main event), which distances the
reader even further from the dead king.
Ozymandias (1818)
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Story
• The narrator meets a traveller who tells him about a statue standing in the middle of the desert.
• It’s a statue of a king who ruled over a past civilisation.
• His face is proud and he arrogantly boasts about how powerful he is in an inscription on the statue’s base.
• However the statue has fallen down and crumbled away so that only the ruins remain.
Structure
• The narrator builds up an image of the statue in the octet by focusing on different parts of it in turn.
• The poem ends by describing the enormous desert in the sestet, which helps to sum up the insignificance of the
statue.
Language
• Irony: There’s nothing left to show for the ruler’s arrogant boasting or his great civilisation. The ruined statue can
be seen as a symbol for the temporary nature of political power or human achievement. Shelley’s use of irony
reflects his hatred of oppression and his belief that it is possible to overturn social and political order.
• Power: The poem focuses on the power of Ozymandias, representing human power. However, this power has
been lost and is only visible due to the power of art. Ultimately, nature has ruined the statue, showing that nature
and time have more power than anything else.
• Anger: The tyranny of the ruler is suggested through aggressive language.
• Pride: The ruler was proud of that he’d achieved. He called on other rulers to admire what he did.
• Arrogance: The inscription shows that the ruler believed that he was the most powerful ruler in the land – nobody
else could compete with him. He also thought he was better than those he ruled.
• Art: Human civilisations and achievements are insignificant compared to the passing of time. Art has the power
to preserve elements of human existence, but it is also temporary.
Form
• The poem is a sonnet, with a volta at line 9, like a Petrarchan sonnet.
• However, it doesn’t follow a regular sonnet rhyme scheme, perhaps reflecting the way that human power and
structures can be destroyed.
• It uses iambic pentameter, but this is also often disrupted.
• The story is a second-hand account (an elusive framing device to frame the main event), which distances the
reader even further from the dead king.
