Irony in Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

604 Words2 Pages

Ozymandias, the Greek name for Ramses II, is a sonnet written by Percy Bysshe Shelley. In the poem, Shelley uses irony as a form of satire, mocking tyranny. The poem was published, according to Ian Lancashire (University of Toronto) near January of 1818. At that time, for Europeans, places like Egypt were considered exotic and that adds to the popularity of the sonnet at the time. Shelley wrote this poem in a competition with Horace Smith who also wrote a similar poem, with the same overall themes and name. The sonnet itself is written in iambic pentameter. The first line is a reference to the speaker, "a traveler from an antique land." Imagery and figurative language used at the beginning of the sonnet,(words such as vast, trunkless, and desert) add to the desolate and barren image and tone of the sonnet. Shelley, through the form of the traveler, describes the statue?s face or ?visage? to have a wrinkled lip, and a ?sneer of cold command.? This describes a negative aspect towards the tyrannical figure. Shelley himself was against tyranny, as that is obvious in his poem here (...

Show More
Related

  • Textual Irony In Frankenstein's Monologue Essay

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    The start of Robert Walton and the monster’s final conversation, this paragraph near the end of Mary Shelly’s novel Frankenstein uncovers the untold perspective of Victor Frankenstein’s creation. Revealing to Robert that Frankenstein’s misery was not the only casualty of the novel, Shelly’s utilization of the monster’s pain illustrates mankind’s hatred and abandonment of the artificial being. Moreover, directing spiteful words towards Victor Frankenstein, Felix De Lacey, and even himself, the monster’s narration reflects the being’s unresolved emotions that have emerged because of society’s cruelty. Although science fiction, the narrative of Frankenstein’s monster exemplifies the literary reproduction of England’s monarchy deserting its own

    Read More

  • Does Mary Shelley Use Irony In His Final Speech To Walton's Last Speech

    810 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein concludes with a series of speeches from Victor Frankenstein and the Creature to Captain Walton, including one where Frankenstein expends his physical strength to persuade Walton’s crew to complete their mission. This speech is striking considering Frankenstein’s previous dangerously ambitious and irresponsible actions. His speech is one of heroics and sublimity, two major values of the Romantic poet. Reading Frankenstein as a reflection of the Romantic poets who surrounded Mary Shelley while she wrote the novel, Frankenstein’s speech is one of a failed Romantic poet – one who takes Shelley’s contemporaries’ ideals too far. Shelley highlights the irony of Frankenstein’s speech through his uncharacteristic use of

    Read More

  • Comparing Poems 'Ozymandias And My Last Duchess'

    503 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shelley uses iambic pentameter within his poem to reflect upon the pharaoh, Ozymandias. ‘Ozy’ means to breathe and ‘mandias’ is to rule so creates a person who is living to be in control and powerful. The poem written in iambic pentameter follows strict rules which reflects Ozymandias’ attitudes towards his people. Deeply negative words in the poem including ‘wrinkled’ and ‘sneer’ suggest he is a dictator and the reader is able to discover that the poem is certainly an attack and not praising his power. The rhythm of the iambic pentameter also resembles a heartbeat which can be seen as ironic as the pharaoh is dead.

    Read More

  • Verbal Irony In Antigone

    442 Words  | 1 Pages

    Sophocles’s Antigone uses irony in it to show the quality of characters like Creon and Antigone. Irony was used to bring out the true character in each person in his plays. Sophocles uses irony many times with Creon and Antigone to show who they really were. Sophocles purpose with portraying irony in his writing was to show Antigone as rude and blunt, and to show Creon as prideful and sexist.

    Read More

  • Shelley's Use Of Abuse Of Power In Ozymandias

    680 Words  | 2 Pages

    broken statue in the reader’s mind. It is important that Shelley uses diction in this way because

    Read More

  • Literary Analysis Of Benjamin Alire Saenz's To The Desert

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poetry is an expression of a writer 's inner thoughts and underlying affection. Composing a sonnet is all about expressing your inner empathy and challenging your readers to dig deeper into the true meaning of writing. How a poet grows up and the experience he or she has faced in their lifetime is the foundation of their poetry. Benjamin Alire Saenz grew up in New Mexico and was a priest for a few years in his life. His poem To the Desert, has a deeper meaning than what is actually being portrayed. Some readers may assume that it is only about living in the desert and adapting to the environment itself. However, that is not quite the case with this solid piece of writing. Throughout the composition of the poem, metaphors, allusions, theme,

    Read More

  • Comparing and Contrasting Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 and Clause McKay's The Harlem Dancer

    603 Words  | 2 Pages

    A sonnet is a fixed patterned poem that expresses a single, complete thought or idea. Sonnet comes from the Italian word “sonetto”, which means “little song”. Poem, on the other hand, is English writing that has figurative language, and written in separate lines that usually have a repeated rhyme, but don’t all the time. The main and interesting thing is that these two poems or sonnets admire and compare the beauty of a specific woman, with tone, repetition, imagery, and sense of sound.

    Read More

  • Use of Irony in Othello

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    the play, it seemed that Othello was the only one who didn't know the truth.

    Read More

  • Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias

    681 Words  | 2 Pages

    Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias. In "Ozymandias," Percy Bysshe Shelley uses a ruined statue of Ramses. II. To illustrate the negative aspects of the sublime.

    Read More

  • Power In Ozymandias

    1176 Words  | 3 Pages

    This poem is fixed and organized, reflecting the stability of power that humans believe they have. However, it's not a regular sonnet, doesn't have a regular sonnet rhyme scheme and more importantly it's not a poem about love or passion (although it could be interpreted as a mockery as Ozymandias’ love for himself). Instead, Shelly combines the traditional Petrarchan Sonnet form, using the octave, volta, and sestet, with the Shakespearean rhyme scheme of ABAB. However, midway, he employs his own rhyme scheme, for lines 9-12, the rhyme scheme is EDEF, rather than EFEF. This could be employed to mock Ozymandias, since the change in the rhyme scheme manages to rhyme “lifeless things” with “King of Kings”, however, alternatively, Shelly could have used the fact that the regular sonnet form has been broken and repeatedly changed throughout the course of history to illustrate his point about how power doesn’t last forever and is likely to switch controls over the course of

    Read More

  • Critical Analysis of Jonh Milton's Sonnet 8

    1304 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sonnet 8 seems to be somewhat melodic as if it were a musical type chant. It sticks strictly to the pattern of 14 lines where a problem exists on the first eight lines and the resolution is on the last 6 lines. It is not an iambic pentameter where there are at least five iambs per metrical line but iambs do exist in the poem like “Muses” or “requite.”

    Read More

  • Egotism and Love in Shakespeare's Sonnet 42

    1250 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first quatrain introduces the surreal relationship between the young man and the poet in the choice of diction that is used. The first line of the sonnet "That thou hast her," uses strong alliterative qualities in the stressed first syllables of each word. In doing so, the imagery that is created is one of conceit and arrogance on the behalf of Shakespeare. Generally, a man who has been cuckold by the infidelities of his mistress is not so swift to forgive his betrayer. Instead, he narcissistically tells the friend that the affair is "not all [his] grief" (1). Likewise, Shakespeare alternately uses hypermetric and iambic lines in the first quatrain. Lines one and three are regular iambic pentameter but lines two and four are hypermetrical iambic pentameter. When referring to the young man and the pseudo-importance of their relationship, Shakespeare implements regular iambic pentameter, trying to convince the rea...

    Read More

  • Love in Shakespeare's Sonnets 18 and 130

    710 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although both sonnets have the common theme of nature, Shakespeare used his words to distinguish the differences in his two lovers. One could say that he was ahead of his time with his writing because he did not bow down to convention. Because he wrote the way he wanted to and was not concerned with other writer's styles Shakespeare has become one of the most influential English writers of all time. He pushes his readers beyond the norms in a great deal of his writing, forcing them to take a closer look at what he actually implies with his words.

    Read More

  • The Theme Of Sonnet 73

    1000 Words  | 2 Pages

    The fourteen line sonnet is constructed by three quatrains and one couplet. With the organization of the poem, Shakespeare accomplishes to work out a different idea in each of the three quatrains as he writes the sonnet to lend itself naturally. Each of the quatrain contains a pair of images that create one universal idea in the quatrain. The poem is written in a iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Giving the poem a smooth rhyming transition from stanza to

    Read More

  • Origins and Explanations of The Sonnet

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    Origins and Explanations of The Sonnet The sonnet originates in Italy in the 12th and 13th century. The term comes from the Italian for "little song" and the best known Italian sonneteers were Dante and Francesco Petrarca. Petrarch proved most influential on the sonnet's successive history, leaving his predominant theme of secular love as well as the form itself to subsequent poets. In 14th century Italy the sonnet was clearly established in as a major form of love poetry. The sonnet is a lyric poem comprised of 14 rhyming lines of equal length utilising a variety of different rhyme schemes, but usually in five-foot iambic pentameters in English.

    Read More

More about Irony in Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Open Document