Percy Bysshe Shelley

For this post, I’m going to focus on Percy Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias.” “Ozymandias” is one of his more well-known poems that he wrote as a sonnet in a sonnet writing contest about a statue. This poem is interesting in the way that it mixes politics and art in Shelley’s poetic style. The poem describes a statue in the poem of Ozymandias, which is the Greek name for Ramses II, the man thought to be the pharaoh of Exodus whom Moses challenged. In the poem, the only things left of the statue are the feet and the head half sunk in the sand next to them. The deteriorated statue that was once a great monument of the king is described as being in ruins. The state of the statue can be compared to the reputation of the king that was once great, but now lies in ruins and is forgotten.

The speaker is telling a story in the poem that he heard from a traveler from an “antique land.” In this poem, instead of a great and lasting king that the pharaoh expected to be, he is merely a diminished ancient king heard from a random traveler. The statue is described on line 2 as “two vast and trunkless of stone” and a half sunk “shattered visage” conveying to the reader its diminished state. Obviously the statue must have at one point been imposing and grand. The half sunk head in the ground illustrates Ozymandias’s sinking status in the present world. The face of the statue has a “wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command” conveying the king’s cold yet strong and commanding nature. This conveys that the sculptor must have known his passions well. The speaker also mentions Ozymandias’s “hand that mocked them” and “heart that fed” referring to the way Ozymandias treated his people. What was interesting in this poem and had me confused at first was the part where the speaker mentions “the heart that fed” which seems to oppose Ozymandias’s cold nature portrayed in the rest of the poem. Even though Ozymandias was cold, he was able to keep power over his people and give them what they needed. On the pedestal, it eerily states, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” This king seemed to have a great amount of pride in his name and in his works. He believed that all rival kings would look at his great works and despair. Ironically though, now nothing is left of his name and works, just as there is nothing really left of the statue. “Nothing beside remains” (ln 12). All that is left around the statue are the “lone and level sands [that] stretch far away” (ln 14). The poem ends in a depressing and empty mood. Even though Ozymandias was a mighty and powerful ruler, the poem displayed that nothing can last forever. Ozymandias thought that his reign would last forever, but as in the statue that was once massive and mighty, it faded and crumbled away.