Ozymandias Flashcards
Author
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Context
Shelley is a political and romantic poet
Ozyamndias is Pharos Ramses II frech revolution
British imperialism
Rhyme
The Poem only begins to properly rhyme when it rhymes “lifeless things” with “kings” which is pretty cheeky and sums up the whole poem
4 words which represent the semantic field of decay, but there can only be decay wit creation. So the king is decay cause his power hasn’t lasted, but the sculpture is still there and that is what is remembered abt him. No matter how powerful he was he can’t change the effects of time
“Trunkless” “shattered” “lifeless”
Quot abt the legs in the dessert, which shows sure they are big but they have no body which is pointless, which shwos ozymandias is no meaningless. Also two more body parts which emphasis the mortality of the king, and that everyone will die
“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone”
“hand” “lip”
Quote abt power, which shows that ozymandias creates power with actions, but has no real power. And the acc power is of words and art. Also shows that the sculpture is mocking ozymandias
“The hand that mocked them”
Key cold quote which shows his arrogance, and that he was at the level just below god
“My name is ozymandias king of kings”
Quote about how vast the desert is emphasising the insignificance of ozymandias is.
“Sands stretch far away”
What’s the poem abt
Basically this guy meets a traveller who tells him abt the statue of ozymandias. But the statue is all broken which shows that nature and time have more power over anything .
Quote that tells us abt ozymandias’s pride and arrogance, hits at his tyrannical rule
“sneer of cold command”
What is the form and why
It’s a sonnet, perhaps for ozymandias’s love for himself, but also cause sonnets are short just like his reign of power
