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Essay for ozymandias by percy bysshe shelley in English
Essay for ozymandias by percy bysshe shelley in English
Essay for ozymandias by percy bysshe shelley in English
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The Lesson of Nature vs. The Greatest of Man As Cherlynn Shakespeare once said, “Even the prettiest flower will die one day. It’s nature's way of teaching us that nothing lasts forever.” Nothing lasts forever. No matter how much they try to live on through their works, the greatness and power of humans is temporary when compared to that of nature, which seems to last forever. The ideas from the quote and the statement above explain the theme in Percy Shelley’s poem Ozymandias. Although the poem seems like a mere description at first glance, the figures of speech, attitude, and the shift of the poem help intertwine this theme through each line, creating a poem with immeasurable depth for the readers to unlock. The poem does not directly mention …show more content…
This depth contributes to the overall theme Shelley meant to convey. The poem, a lyrical and somewhat biographical Spenserian sonnet written in iambic pentameter, contains many word choices that emphasize the idea that the statue is in ruins, providing a sharp contrast to how Ozymandias thought he would be remembered by his works. Words such as antique, shattered, despair, decay, and remains show that the statue is broken and in empty lands. Ozymandias thought his colossal works could carry on his greatness forever, which is not the case. The contrast between Ozymandias’ expectations and what now remains adds an ironic tone to the piece. The statue in ruins in the middle of an empty desert also adds an element of death to the mix. It symbolizes the death of the once great civilization that Ozymandias was a part of as well as the death of his ambition, greatness, power, and pride. Nature is the cause of this, which shows how it is more powerful than Ozymandias. The poem also mentions the colossal size of the statue. This symbolizes the power of Ozymandias’ greatness and ambition. Nature destroying the statue is like the death of Ozymandias’ greatness and ambition, a point that is made twice in order to emphasize it. As seen above, Shelley stresses the broken nature of the statue throughout the poem. One of the more subtle ways he does this is by using synecdoches. For example, in
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
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.
Time is equated with constant decay throughout the entire poem, which is primarily shown in the speaker’s comparison of the concept of eternity to a desert. Love, and other concepts felt in life, are subject to this negative force of deconstruction over time, and are vanquished in death; this idea can be seen in the witty commentary at the end of the second stanza, “the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace”
This means that crumbling is a result of dilapidation, which is caused by gradual decay. The deterioration that results is progressive: one stage of decay leads to the next until crumbling inevitably comes along. The second stanza contains four images of decay: “cobweb, rust, dust and borer in the axis.'; These images are combined with specific details which give them a deeper meaning. The dust is a “cuticle,'; which suggests that it is at the edges. The “cobwebs on the soul'; suggest spiritual deterioration (cobwebs symbolizing neglect). “Elemental'; rust means basic corrosion and corruption. the “borer in the axis'; represents something that eats a person from the inside out. In the third stanza, the word “ruin'; is perhaps the most suitable word for describing both physical and spiritual collapse. “Devil’s work'; speaks for itself--the devil is evil, ruin is evil. this poem can describe any type of ruin: personal, emotional, financial.
Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" portrays the past power of authority symbolized by the once great world power of Egypt. William Butler Yeats' "The Second Coming" portrays the past power religion once had over the world, gradually lost ever since the end of Shelley's era of Romanticism. "Ozymandias" was written in a time when human rule coupled with religious guidance, but was slowly easing away from that old tradition as they entered the highly progressive era of the Victorians. In his poem, Shelley was comparing the formally powerful Egyptian pharaoh's "antique" and prideful form of rule with the unsuccessful future the "traveller" met in the desert with the ruins of the king's "shattered visage" (Longman, Shelley, p. 1710, l. 1 & 4). In a sense, Shelley was also saying that human rulership was just as easily able to fail as the once great and powerful world rule of Egypt once did, for ages. Yeats also is alluding to this idea, but imposing his view on another type of rule once great for hundreds of years of its rulership, that of Christianity or religion in general. In "The Second Coming" he envisions the "falcon" of humanity drifting away and ignoring "the falconer," Christian religions (Longman, Yeats, p. 2329, l. 2). "The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart" says Yeats, depicting how human reliance on religion has become cold and disinterested in its lead anymore due to human progress of science, thus their loss of reliance and trustworthiness of religion's claims.
...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.
King George is “old, mad, blind, despised, and dying”; the princes have become cold and selfish draining their country dry, fighting for the throne; the people are starving, depressed, and their crops are failing; the army and church are consumed with greed and takes from its own people; the laws remain unenforced, and Parliament is “Time’s worst statute unrepealed”(“1819” 12) These are all symptoms of a failing government, which I interpret leads Shelley to his last lines, and prediction, of his poem, “Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may/ Burst, to illuminate our tempestous day”(“1819” 13-14). I think Shelley was convinced that the only hope in humanity is through violent revolution or “a Phantom of light from graves”. I believe this poem warns humanity of handing its power to the one percent, especially when that party reaps the most benefits of its advanced nation. Again implying democracy is the only system of government that can possibly work for the whole when given the power of
The consistent pattern of metrical stresses in this stanza, along with the orderly rhyme scheme, and standard verse structure, reflect the mood of serenity, of humankind in harmony with Nature. It is a fine, hot day, `clear as fire', when the speaker comes to drink at the creek. Birdsong punctuates the still air, like the tinkling of broken glass. However, the term `frail' also suggests vulnerability in the presence of danger, and there are other intimations in this stanza of the drama that is about to unfold. Slithery sibilants, as in the words `glass', `grass' and `moss', hint at the existence of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden. As in a Greek tragedy, the intensity of expression in the poem invokes a proleptic tenseness, as yet unexplained.
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
In his poem, 'Lines Written in the Early Spring,' William Wordsworth gives us insight into his views of the destruction of nature. Using personification, he makes nature seem to be full of life and happy to be living. Yet, man still is destroying what he sees as 'Nature's holy plan'; (8).
The poems, “Above Tintern Abbey” and “Intimations of Immortality written by the poet, William Wordsworth, pertain to a common theme of natural beauty. Relaying his history and inspirations within his works, Wordsworth reflects these events in each poem. The recurring theme of natural beauty is analogous to his experiences and travels.
A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds – Shelley (sparknotes Percy Shelley). Percy Bysshe Shelley was born August 4, 1792 in Broadbridge Heath, England. He was the eldest son of Timothy Shelley, a Member of Parliament, and Elizabeth Shelley (Bio “Percy Bysshe Shelley”). He was very respected by all five of his younger siblings and even by the maids that worked for his family. Since he did stand in line to inherit not only his grandfather’s considerable estate but also a seat in parliament (“Academy of American Poets”). Shelley grew up during the Victorian Age that included artistic, intellectual and literary movements that molded many peoples’ lifestyles. The Romantic Age was the starting point for many well-known poets we know today such as William Wordsworth and Geoffrey Chaucer. Artists and poets during this period also respected nature and saw nature as life itself and giving it meaning in their works. These men were extremely popular during the early 1800’s, around when Percy really began to feel a connection with himself and some of the great poets in his time. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s works including Ozymandias, Ode to the West Wind and The Masque of Anarchy express Shelley’s infatuation for nature’s beauty and also displays his passion for a less restrained society and his craving for other individual freedoms.
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.
One of the ideas that poets use in literature is the thought of immortality, something that cannot be control in real life but in fiction it can be As Emily Dickinson proves it in the stanza ‘’because I could not stop from death he kindly stop from me ‘’ (lit anthology) what she point out that even when least expected death can happen whether or not you are ready to depart from the world. In the poem the narrator is a dead woman that tell her process of dying she indicate her wish to live longer to live an eternal-life by using metaphor to show that death is just process of life that it cannot be stop from coming to you . In the second stanza Dickinson also uses simile to compare the act of death as a man seducing her ...
He is writing the poem as if he were an object of the earth, and what it is like to once live and then die only to be reborn. On the other hand, Wordsworth takes images of meadows, fields, and birds and uses them to show what gives him life. Life being whatever a person needs to move on, and without those objects, they can't have life. Wordsworth does not compare himself to these things like Shelley, but instead uses them as an example of how he feels about the stages of living. Starting from an infant to a young boy into a man, a man who knows death is coming and can do nothing about it because it's part of life.