Ozymandias

Read the poem and then in a small group, or on your own, think about how the contextual facts, interesting as they may be in their own right, actually impact on your understanding of the poem.

Ozymandias

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.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Questions

Here are some contextual points about Shelley and his poem, Ozymandias:


  • Ozymandias was written to order, as part of a sonnet writing competition with a friend.
  • The title is the Greek name for Pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt. The huge, but part destroyed statue was being moved from Egypt to London. Rameses II had been a Pharaoh (leader) of great power and influence.
  • The poem was written in 1817 and published in early 1818 in a magazine, The Examiner, which was very influential in the early 19th Century. Run by a friend of Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and other Romantic poets, called Leigh Hunt, it often published their writing.
  • Shelley had a short but eventful life. He was born into privilege, but led quite a wild life. He was expelled from university, fell out with his family (partly because he eloped with the 16 year old friend of his sister when he was only 19) He then fell madly in love with another 16 year old, Mary Godwin, the daughter of well-known intellectuals and writers and eloped abroad with her, leaving his wife who was expecting their second child. Mary went on to be famous as the writer of Frankenstein. He died in 1822, drowned while travelling on a boat off the shore of Italy, when he was 29.
  • Shelley was a radical in his political and social beliefs, believing in extreme (radical) change.
  • The statue of Ozymandias is a sort of symbol of the relatively short life of tyrants and tyrannical regimes, whilst art (like the poem) survives.

Write the introductory paragraph to your response to the question:

Show how Shelley presents ideas about power in his poem Ozymandias.


What, if any, effect may Shelley’s background have had on the writing of this sonnet?

Is there any evidence of Shelley’s political views in the poem?

The sonnet was written to order, in a way, and is about a specific event and person. Do you think it has anything to say about recent or current political regimes?

What sort of impressions do you get of the “antique land” of which the “traveller” speaks?

Drag the statements

Here is a list of some of the ideas and themes that may be found in Ozymandias.
Either on your own, or in a small group, put these ideas or themes in rank order. Be prepared to defend your decisions!

Very important
Not important at all
  • Art and culture
  • Civilisation
  • The temporary nature of all physical things
  • Power
  • Pride
  • Mankind and nature