Ozymandias, King of Nothing
In "Ozymandias", Percy Byshe Shelley relates a description of a mysterious land laid to waste as told to a man by an unnamed traveler. Granted, the poem was written after Shelley had seen ruins of the ancient Egyptian Empire imported to England, but in the poem is something greater, a portrait of a man who built himself during the span of his life to a position of great power, only to be discovered centuries later with nothing but eroded stone to his name. The particular words that Shelley chose to describe a lost, grand and ruined kingdom are all words of powerful connotation. Every adjective, every noun, builds an image of something big and strong, something enormous and indestructible.
An emphasis on physical appearance is blatant. Surfacing first, above the duality and symbolism in the poem, is the immediate call to attention of the physical size and orientation of the statue. This is most notably presented in lines 2 through 4. Although only two words, "vast" and "half," are specific in relating size, "stand" and "near" connect to project exactly how the "...two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and the "shattered visage" lie. The word vast is not as common as a tired word such as "big", and helps to describe the sheer monstrosity of the base of the statue of the great king Ozymandias. To simply have two "vast" legs, without the trunk, indicates how imposing the statue must have been when intact. Ozymandias' head, somewhat fragmented and laid to rot with the sands, is half sunk. Half sunk, yet clearly still able to stir deep emotional response with its "sneer of cold command." Although the word "half" is not as impressive as "vast" and almost detracts from the imposing...
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...e sculptor, as described by Shelley, carved these two aspects of Ozymandias' persona into stone.
"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair," shouts the platform from which Ozymandias has been reduced to speak. What pride, what arrogance, what kind of (apparently) falsely heightened sense of self-worth did the vast and trunkless legs of stone once support? The answer comes straight from Shelley: "...the lone and level sands stretch far away, boundless and bare; encircling the entirety of a lifeless wreck, nothing beside remain." This is the kingdom of Ozymandias; the king of nothing, like a playground bully with the rug pulled out from under him years after his defeat. With careful phrasing and well-picked words, Shelley created a mighty ruler, one whose hand carefully and sternly managed and governed an unknown, invisible, and dead nation.
When I first read the requirements for this book review assignment, I wasn’t currently reading a book. I knew I wanted to do it on a Nicholas Sparks books as those are easy reads for myself and I knew a lot of them had to do with family issues. I went to check out a few options at the library when I stumbled across this book, “The Mentor”. I started reading and I was instantly hooked!
"Ozymandias" written by Percy Shelley, represents the psychological forces of the id as well as the superego, as a charceter in a poem, and as a poetic work. In the poem we encounter a traveler. He brings a message from the desert. There is a statue that exists alone among the rocks and sand. Stamped on the pedestal of that statue are these words, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Journal articles are constructed by professionals who have excelled in their fields of study. Ross is a professor at the University of Baltimore in the School of Criminal Justice. Through the article, Ross presents statistics and other significant sources to support his propositions.
It also symbolizes how lives pressures or personal issues can get in your way and prevent someone from succeeding. The reflecting pool at the bottom of the columns add a wonderment affect to the sculpture. Light is constantly changing reflecting and refracting off of the water and on to the sculpture, an effect that seemingly adds additional dimensions to the piece. Even the fact that Lutgert Hall behind the sculpture is much larger and boisterous, it
“How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavored to form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautiful! – Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun white sockets in which they were set, his shriveled complexion, and straight black lips.” (Shelley 34)
Former Senator Joseph McCarthy put it perfectly when he said, “… for the FBI is J. Edgar Hoover and I think we can rest assured that it will always be.” (qtd. in Denenberg 7). J. Edgar Hoover is credited for reconstructing the Bureau of Investigations (later renamed Federal Bureau of Investigations). Regardless of how people saw him, Hoover was powerful and committed, and did everything within his power to improve the agency that would make this country a safer place for all.
Smith, Philip. “Narrating the Guillotine: Punishment Technology as Myth and Symbol” Theory, Culture & Society October 2003 vol. 20 no. 5 27-51. Web. 3 Apr. 2014.
Tattoos are a form of creativity. In today’s societies, tattoos are a large part of many different cultures but all share the common body decoration. They are a way to express yourself, your religion, or your inner feelings. Tattoos are permanent colored images on the skin. In history, they are marked as the most universal type of permanent body decoration. Tattooing can have many different explanations for getting them. There are also different categories of tattoos.
Once considered taboo, tattoos have shed the social outcast stigma once associated with getting inked. One might even say tattoos have become trendy.
Ages ago in Greek and Roman culture there was many ways of execution for the inmate such as: putting the person in a bag with venomous snakes and let them kill them, or put them in a cooper bull that they would put the person in the bull close it. Then they would build a fire under the bull and listen to the person scream. The screaming would turn to smoke when it went through the nostrils making it look as if it was mad (history channel).
A tattoo is a work of art, just like painting on a canvas and every artist has a different reason for drawing their work of art the same way that the viewers having a different wait of perceiving their work of art. I got my rose tattoo because one, I had just turned 18 and always wanted one for a while. But roses are also my favorite flower and I think they are very beautiful and since getting it done wasn’t as pricey as it usually is, I decided to do it. There’s no secret meaning behind my tattoo; I just find roses beautiful and liked the sketch that the artist showed to
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
From Geisha, cherry blossom to symbols, fish and dragon, Japanese tattoo is worth trying on your back. Japanese symbols are trendsetters and have amazing meanings, so you can choose a meaningful symbol that would complement your personality.
In the second quatrain, the speaker depicts a moving image of a twilight that can be seen fading on him as the sun sets in the west and soon turns into darkness. Symbolizing the last moments of life the speaker has. In the third quatrain the speaker depicts an image with a similar meaning as the previous, except for one distinct last thought. The speaker depicts a living image of a bonfire extinguishing and turning into ashes, ashes that may represent his well lived youth. The image gives the idea that ashes represent what once was a beautiful life to the speaker.
People who are closed minded view tattoos as taboos, and feel that those who have tattoos are a menace to society, lowlifes, and criminals. Japan is a very traditional country and for them “tattoos are automatically linked with one word that can instantly hush a noisy bar and perfume the air with angst - yakuza” (The Toronto Star). A yakuza is a japanese gangster and is similar to the mafia. A yakuza follows the samurai code of honor, and if broken they are severely punished; moreover, these yakuzas get full body tattoos as a form of toughness and loyalty (The toronto Star). However, this stigma of criminals and tattoos is not only in Japan, it also prevalent in the USA. In America, many prisoners have tattoos as a representation of how long they have been in jail. Criminals in america also have teardrops that represent how many people they have killed. There are also people who have tattoos that associate them to a particular