Ozymandias, a 14 line sonnet written in iambic pentameter by Percy Bysshe Shelley, portrays a story of loss and ruin. The poem begins with a traveler telling the poet about horrible destruction he has seen. The king of the ruined town,Ozymandias, sees the rummage in dismay ,as his town is destroyed. In her writing Shelley portrays a warning to her readers using the theme that power is only temporary. Alas Shelley’s imaginative diction immerses her readers into the pain and suffering Ozymandias’ city feels.
The diction in Ozymandias describes the scene of a massacre so vividly that it captivates the reader. In this poem the author recites the words of a traveler who says,
” Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/ Stand in the desert (line 2-3).
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The horrified traveler shares what he’s seen, but instead of ripping the text to its simplest form Percy paints a picture. The author uses powerful adjectives such as ‘vast’, to portray her poem’s theme on a higher level. The poet continues the traveler’s words when describing a fallen statue: “Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command”(lines 3-4). The traveller describes a disfigured and destroyed statue, left among the ruble. When the traveler describes, the head of the statue, depicted of Ozymandias, he focuses of the face expression. The words “sneer of cold command” stretch beyond their trivial meanings to reveal that Ozymandias has a disrespectful expression and attitude towards his followers. This poem displays many thoughts and feelings but, using diction, Shelley activates her readers imagination and brings the message of inevitable loss of power right to her readers. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias oozes imagery so strong it evokes emotions.
The three persons affected in this poem are the traveler, king, and reader. Every character comes from a different vantage point, but the diction in this poem allows each character to portray their own emotions. The traveler speaks of the statue, “Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, /The hand that mocked them”(lines 7-8). The passions of the man portrayed by the statute survives because they are engraved in its every parcel, despite being sprawled amongst the desert. In the second line, “the hand” refers to the sculptor, and when he’s accused of mocking them it has two meanings. The author chooses “mocked” as a way to express not only that the sculpture has ridiculed the sculptures muse, but has also copied him. Alas, wisely chosen diction allows not only the traveller to express their exact feeling for the reader, but more so, every character involved. Further, the king Ozymandias struggles to accept that nothing in his town remains, “Round the decay /Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare”(12-13). “Colossal”, “boundless and bare”, these are all part of the diction that connect the King’s defeat and pity to the reader. The excellent word choice used in this poem displays the theme that all power comes to an in an artistic and vivid
way. Our language is our all encompassing way of communicating. Without communication, without language, we are lost, trapped with our own ideas. Thankfully people were blessed with the ability to express themselves. Percy Bysshe Shelley, the author of Ozymandias, uses the power of language to express her own ideas in the most powerful way she can: through the gift of language. There are so many ways to portray a theme of inevitable loss of power, but words like “colossal”, boundless”, and “bare” send this message to a reader in a much deeper way. To many our world today symbolizes a “colossal wreck”. This poem sends a much needed message to many of our world leaders that no matter who you are your reign will end. Furthermore, the fluidity and strength of language used in this poem is lost in the world. People today resort to curse words to express emotion rather than the beauty that are adjectives. Ozymandias, ties together a theme of insecure power, much like powers all over the world today, with diction that seems to have escaped our world.
In the story , Christopher Hitchens uses negative diction such as the word “Grotesque” , which he uses towards the structure of the sculptures of the Goddess and one of the Greek Gods . In paragraph
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
The poem Ozymandias tells of a king who was very powerful, people feared him. He created statues of himself for people to admire. Now all that remains of his power are remains. What remains of him are memories that are now long forgotten and that the wind carries away. Sand that stretches for miles and miles until it
‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Shelley and ‘My Last Duchess’ have many links and similar themes such as power, time and art. ‘Ozymandias’ shows the insignificance of human life after passing time whilst ‘My Last Duchess’ speaks of his deceased wife in a form of a speech.
and > “whale-road� is an ocean. A king or important noble is > called a “ring-giver� many times throughout the poem. > There are several similes is the poem.
In the text Bishop states, “The monument is one-third set against/ a sea; two thirds against a sky.” (line 18) It is suggested that the monument is one with nature. The narrator goes on to state, “A sea of narrow, horizontal boards/lies out behind our lonely monument,/its long grains alternating right and left/like floor-boards--spotted, swarming-still,/and motionless.” Here the author personifies the monument by describing it as “swarming-still”. The phrase swarming-still is contradictory because an object cannot move and be still at the same time. The narrator personifies the monument as to express its life-like qualities. The location of the monument is never stated. A second voice joins the poem and questions the location of their presence, “‘Where are we? Are we in Asia Minor,/ Or in Mongolia?’” (line 33) Without knowledge on the location of the monument it is difficult to know what it means. The narrator ponders on what the monuments purpose is, “An ancient promontory,/ an ancient principality whose artist-prince/ might have wanted to build a monument/ to mark a tomb or boundary, or make/ a melancholy or romantic scene of it…” (line 35) The narrator herself is unsure of who created the monument or why. This pushes the audience to develop their own perceptions as the narrator brainstorms about its significance. A voice separate from the narrator states, “‘But that queer sea looks made of wood,/half-shining,like a driftwood sea./And the sky looks wooden, grained with cloud./ It’s like a stage-set; it is all so flat!/Those clouds are full of glistening splinters!/What is that?’”(line 40) This voice questions the scenery surrounding the monument. The narrator states that, “It is the monument” This implies that the narrator perceives the surrounding environment to be part of the monument itself. Another voice says, “‘Why did you bring me here to see
The hero’s lament of not having an heir is but one of many dozens of sorrows in this poetic classic, which balance with numerous joys expressed on alternate pages. This essay expresses but a selection of joys and sorrows from among the almost countless number existing in the poem.
The speaker uses the literary device of allegory as a large part of his poems message. He uses allegory to compare
...ion of the situation to the Ancient Mariner. Moreover, the way in which the dialogue is presented, makes the structure seems more of a script of a play. The structure of the poem is a key characteristic in displaying the theme, for by telling the story as a personal experience, it helps the reader understand the moral and theme intended as a warning to people.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Prometheus Unbound. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. Ed. Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002. 206-283.
Chaos and drudgery are common themes throughout the poem, displayed in its form; it is nearly iambic pentameter, but not every line fits the required pattern. This is significant because the poem’s imperfect formulation is Owen making a statement about formality, the poem breaks the typical form to show that everything is not functioning satisfactorily. The poem’s stanza’s also begin short, but become longer, like the speaker’s torment and his comrades movement away from the open fire. The rhyming scheme of ABABCDCD is one constant throughout the poem, but it serves to reinforce the nature of the cadence as the soldiers tread on. The war seems to drag on longer and longer for the speaker, and represents the prolonged suffering and agony of the soldier’s death that is described as the speaker dwells on this and is torn apart emotionally and distorts his impressions of what he experiences.
This poem describes a story told you by a passing traveler of a ruined statue of a king, Ozymandias, seemingly in a desolate desert. On the statue in is inscribed, “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’/Nothing beside remain” (“Ozymandias” 10-12). Upon examination of the surrounding land, we realize that the once vast kingdom around the statue has been taken back by the desert, leaving the ironic message on the statue. This poem shows Shelley’s ideas of how all is temporary, especially mankind and our achievements. Showing romantic values, Shelley believed nature is much greater than man and no matter how big your kingdom, mather nature will always take back what was always
It is nature that destroys humankind when the sun disappears and the volcano erupts in “Darkness” and in “Ozymandias,” it is the sand and wind that causes the statue to fall. In Byron’s poem, humans lose the fight for their lives, and in Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias’s statue is powerless because it is lifeless, emphasizing the importance of the themes of life and death to the shared topic of destruction. Although they explore destruction using different language, they share the use of ideas about the destruction of civilization, and the fall of humankind because of nature, life and
Exaggeration in the poem could stretch the truth too much and could complicate the reader’s interpretation of the poem, and if figurative language that language that is unfamiliar to the reader and is used, the reader’s knowledge of the real events behind the poem could be false. Most importantly, rhyme and repetition could emphasize points in the battle that aren’t necessarily important. These elements put the spotlight on lessons that life needs to teach readers and things everyone must
The poem begins by painting a hopeless and cold portrait of the environment experienced by the speaker. It is winter time and the frost is “specter gray” (2), implying filthy snow, probably from the pollution due to the new factories created in industrialization and urbanization. Not the beautiful white snow they were used to. Nothing had a glimpse of hope or beauty anymore, not even the bine of the plants; the speaker describes them as “strings of broken lyres” (6). Lyres are often associated with Greek gods or angels. However in the poem he illustrates the destruction of the land using this metaphor of the broken strings, something use to be beautiful. The streets are bare and “all mankind” (7) has retreat back home and “sought their household fire” (8).