Maggie's Ozymandias

In developing an insightful central theme, Percy Shelley avails of two potent literary tools, imagery and irony, to jolt readers with a striking epiphany. Imagery for one, navigates the audience to what is truly emphasized in the poem: literary art as opposed to physical, plastic art. It also serves to characterize a key figure in the poem—Ozymandias—whom is ascribed as having cold, arrogant, and pretentious qualities. The speaker juxtaposes the words inscribed on the pedestal with the image of dilapidated monuments and the bare boundless sands which surround it. When these two vivid descriptions contrast, the visual imagery, through this juxtaposition, actually buttresses situational irony. In fact, situational irony dominates and governs the reader’s very impression of the former pharaoh at the conclusion of the poem; worn down and disintegrated, Ozymandias’ monument portrays an image of wreckage and unimportance; whereas, the poem itself portrays an image, which withstanding time, has successfully attempted what Ozymandias himself desired: everlasting fame and a lasting legacy. By using imagery and irony, Shelley conveys the idea that poetical verses, linguistic expressions, and literary legacies outlast those of monumental and architectural form.

Interestingly enough, Shelley employs the phrase “antique land” (1) to start out; the diction in this instance highlights the setting, and our perspective of time, for antiquity denotes the belonging to the past and not being modern. The style in which the poem is rendered is reminiscent of a folk tale’s recital since we are told the story through an obscure traveller and the reader is naturally drawn into the mysticism and mystery. However, in this way, Shelley distances the audie...

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...initely. So the wreckage which remained scarcely survived the sands of time. So in this way, the reader perceives that a legacy through a mere monument is a legacy which fades.

So what is left of Ozymandias? The poem itself—and further, the poem actually slights at the very heart of the former king’s desired legacy. We see that, in fact, how easily the Pharaoh, whom monuments had once been built for and who once ruled a great empire, is easily thwarted in the reader’s mind by linguistic expressions, by delicate subtle phrases, and by literary persuasion. Shelley’s work perpetuates through the years to remind many of Ozymandias. On the other hand, we also see that the endurance of physical art, monumental designs, and sculptures as a medium of legacy is inferior to that of the mighty, powerful literary weapons Shelley wields from his arsenal of ink and parchment.