McCartha 1 Grace McCartha Weathersbee 8B Literature and Composition AP 14 November 2013 Ozymandias Poem Explication In Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley describes an old statue in an ancient land. Using multiple and various devices like tone, diction, imagery, form, and irony, Shelley easily depicts the theme of the poem—that all mighty things (particularly kingdoms) are temporary and will diminish with time. But the remains that last to tell about them in years to come will be works of art. The speaker of the poem is the poet for only a brief period of time. Then readers get the perspective of some traveler the poet has met. The traveler’s voice is observing and critical and also a little melancholy because of the despondency of the scene. The diction in the poem is sophisticated and that of an educated person. This makes the message more credible and believable. As for the arrangement of the lines of poetry, the more important words seem to be stressed at the end of a line. Those words, like “lifeless things” (line 7), “decay” (line 12), and “boundless and bare” (line 13), contain the message the speaker wants to relay and emphasize. Because they are at the end of the line, readers have a chance to pause after them and reflect. Imagery is also very prevalent in the poem. The traveler uses imagery to describe the scene of the statue in the desert. For example, “the lone and level sands stretch far away” (line 14), is imagery as well as “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” (line 2). Imagery is necessary to describe the state of the statue so that readers understand the irony of the situation. As for its form, Ozymandias is a sonnet arranged in an octet followed by a sestet. The arrangement is beautiful and easy to read as well as easy on the eye. The poem does rhyme, to help with the flow and the ease at which readers read it. McCartha 2 At the base of the decaying and crumbling statue there is an inscription reading, “My name is Ozymandias, kings of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (lines 10‐11). Considering the state of the statue, the inscription is ironic. Obviously, there is nothing grand or superior about this ruined statue. Once great, its splendor is faded and forgotten. The statue is a symbol of the kingdom and time it came from, it is what remains. Shelley was inspired to write the poem by a Ramesses II statue found in Egypt and put in a London museum. While this work of art has outlasted everything else from its time, it is the last legacy of its great kingdom. Shelley is suggesting that art carries on kingdom’s legacies while also saying that all mighty kingdoms come to an end. Ozymandias Percy Bysshe Shelley I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.