Poetry Response #5 "Ozymandias" BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Ozymandias

BY 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.”

Response: 

Starting with the title of this poem, Ozymandias is a name; specifically, Ozymandias is an alternative name for an egyptian Pharaoh. I gained the knowledge of the title from the annotations within the poem on the poetry foundation website. With the information presented from the annotations, I can infer that the poem is most likely about this egyptian ruler since the title is his name; indeed, before studying poetry this way I would believe that stating information that appears obvious is an obvious strategy, but I’ve learned the obvious goes a long way when studying poetry and literature through the college board lens.  The speaker of the poem mentions that he meets a traveler and then quotes what the traveler tells him, giving the poem a second person point a view since the speaker starts with “I met a traveler from an antique land”. Point of view still confuses me a bit but there is an I within that first line so a more safe approach would be to assume the first person lens instead of second person.

Imagery is the most powerful literary device used in the poem; Shelley paints a picture of the antique land and what the traveler says to him “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.” In order to comprehend the words we must draw from the sensory details presented; we see the “sight of the half sunk a shattered visage”, the words heard by the speakers voice, and the vision of Ozymandias being the “king of kings”. Still, the poem targets the idea that Ozymandias is not there himself, and only his remains, remain. Words such as nothing, decay, wreck, bare, and lone are used to display the nothingness. A possible theme for this poem could be that power can only be held and obtained only in the living moments; correspondingly, the birth of life could be a birth of power and death would represent the opposite effect.