"Ozymandias"

Of all of Shelley's works, I found "Ozymandias" to be my favorite. Although it was a short poem, I think it carried a lot of meaning. Ozymandias was also known as Ramses II as the footnote tells. "He was thought to be the pharaoh of Exodus whom Moses challenged." (footnote). In the podcast on Shelley's work, Dr. Glance, you told us that Shelley wrote this poem as part of a contest over and exhibit in a British Museum. As I read the poem, I found that fact quite interesting. We have Ozymandias who thinks he is this mighty ruler who is never to be forgotten, and Shelley is writing about him because of an exhibit in this museum. It is true that Ozymandias does live on in this museum, however, Shelley only writes of this exhibit for the contest ( I just found this to be ironic).

The poem starts, " I met a traveller from an antique land" (1). The first observation I made is that Shelley writes this poem as if the story was told by someone who experienced the ruin first hand. I thought this was interesting and important for Shelley to do. Because we know that Shelley is experiencing this statue in a museum, it is much more appealing if the reader thinks they are hearing an account from someone who was actually on the scene.

As the traveller describes the statue he says, "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."(2-8). This passage discusses the sculptor. It discusses how the sculptor made this statue of his King, yet the face was not welcoming or friendly. It was cold and it seemed that the sculptor felt the King may have thought himself to be better than everyone else. This is clear as the poem tell of the wrinkled lip and frown. In the last line of this sentence, I interpreted this in two ways. The first was that perhaps the sculptor was confused in making this statue. He did not know how to portray his King because the King did mock the people, and may have treated them poorly, but the King was also the one feeding them, so the sculptor could not be too harsh. The second way I interpreted this was that the sculptor was mocking the King with his work. I am not sure which is correct, but I think they are both kind of relevant.

The next section of the poem tells of the writing on the pedestal. It reads, " My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:/ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"(10-11). This line is ironic because of the previous lines that refer to the statue of him in ruins next to the pedestal. Ozymandias thinks himself better than everyone else and wants everyone to see how mighty he is. Ironically, none of his works exist any longer. So as you look around to see how mighty he and his works are, all the traveller saw was remains and sand. This was interesting to me because Ozymandias thought that he could leave a lasting impression... he was clearly wrong it seems to hint that nature is the only thing that can truly make a lasting impression. I think this section of the poem hinted at Shelley's political views slightly. I don't think that he condoned the idea of one man ruling over everyone and having all this power. The power clearly was not lasting and would fade because we are not immortal.