GCSE Poetry, Power and Conflict: Ozymandias
Summary:
Traveller tells the poet that two huge stone legs stand in the desert. Near them
on the sand lies the damaged stone head. The face is distinguished by a
frown and sneer which the sculptor carved on as the features. Around the
huge fragments stretches the empty desert
Context:
Shelley grew up in a wealthy family and is knows as a romantic. He was
expelled from the uni for atheism which led his father to disinherit him. He
drowned at sea. He is known as a radical. Ozymandias can be read as
criticism of people/systems that become huge and believe that they are
invincible.
Structure:
A sonnet (14 lines) but doesn’t have simple rhymes scheme, lines are split by
full stop and rhyme is irregular. Uses iambic pentameter. The irregularity of
the rhyme scheme maybe a symbol of the broken statue itself and how it is no
longer perfect.
"I met a traveller from an antique land" (1)
Shelley begins the poem by detaching himself from the story being told. He
wants to point 'not open criticism’. But a thinly veiled attack.
The very fact that the "land" is "antique" suggests that it is outdated, kind of
like dial-up internet. The speaker implies that the traveller is coming from a
place that is more primitive or older than the speaker's, a place that used to be
home to a civilization and culture that has passed away.
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair" (10)
The tone is indicated through the exclamation mark as it shows strength and
authority, but it is ironic as nobody is listening.
Also portrays Ozymandias as arrogant and foolish as his "works" turns in
to "despair" but he tells the "mighty" to be worried as their works will never
be good as his. This deliberately portrays him as stupid as there is nothing
left "beside remains”.
"Sneer of cold command" (5)
Shows Ozymandias’s character as arrogant and powerful but now ironic as
there is nothing left. Also tells us the statue is wearing the same expressions
as the king. (synaesthesia)
Summary:
Traveller tells the poet that two huge stone legs stand in the desert. Near them
on the sand lies the damaged stone head. The face is distinguished by a
frown and sneer which the sculptor carved on as the features. Around the
huge fragments stretches the empty desert
Context:
Shelley grew up in a wealthy family and is knows as a romantic. He was
expelled from the uni for atheism which led his father to disinherit him. He
drowned at sea. He is known as a radical. Ozymandias can be read as
criticism of people/systems that become huge and believe that they are
invincible.
Structure:
A sonnet (14 lines) but doesn’t have simple rhymes scheme, lines are split by
full stop and rhyme is irregular. Uses iambic pentameter. The irregularity of
the rhyme scheme maybe a symbol of the broken statue itself and how it is no
longer perfect.
"I met a traveller from an antique land" (1)
Shelley begins the poem by detaching himself from the story being told. He
wants to point 'not open criticism’. But a thinly veiled attack.
The very fact that the "land" is "antique" suggests that it is outdated, kind of
like dial-up internet. The speaker implies that the traveller is coming from a
place that is more primitive or older than the speaker's, a place that used to be
home to a civilization and culture that has passed away.
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair" (10)
The tone is indicated through the exclamation mark as it shows strength and
authority, but it is ironic as nobody is listening.
Also portrays Ozymandias as arrogant and foolish as his "works" turns in
to "despair" but he tells the "mighty" to be worried as their works will never
be good as his. This deliberately portrays him as stupid as there is nothing
left "beside remains”.
"Sneer of cold command" (5)
Shows Ozymandias’s character as arrogant and powerful but now ironic as
there is nothing left. Also tells us the statue is wearing the same expressions
as the king. (synaesthesia)
