Ozymandias

Any person who sees this statue of Ozymandias, the so-called “King of Kings,” is meant to read this line engraved on the statue’s pedestal and imagine it being spoken by Ozymandias, the man...

The hand and heart referred to are the symbolic representations of the emotions of Ozymandias, the Egyptian king whose image was captured in the now-fallen sculpture. The traveller states that the...

Ozymandias was a king who loved himself more than his subjects. He was a self-absorbed megalomaniac with the notion of being the mightiest ruler in the whole world. Insensitive and haughty in...

The main message of Shelley's “Ozymandias” is that political power is not destined to last. It is temporal, not eternal, no matter how powerful or fearsome a particular ruler may be. Even the most...

The power wielded by Ozymandias comes through in the poem from specific word choices as well as from the overall image created. "The sneer of cold command" on the face of the statue implies great...

The vision depicted in the poem indicates that Ozymandias was a strong ruler. He was probably one that ruled out of fear and conquest, and ruled with a strong sense of control. The fact that he...

"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a poem told by an anonymous narrator who encounters a traveler who tells of a fallen and shattered statue in a remote area in the desert. The statue is of...

"Ozymandias" is a famous sonnet by the British Romantic poet Percy Shelley. The poem is best known for its eleventh line, "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" and for the ironic...

Shelley uses a wide array of figurative, or non-literal, language in "Ozymandias," giving great depth to the sonnet. The way that the poet uses the word "read" is an idiomatic use of the word....

"Ozymandias" has a tone of ironic solemnity. The irony emerges from the juxtaposition of Ozymandias's inflated vision of his power and grandeur as ruler of a mighty kingdom and what survives of it...

The poem "Ozymandias" describes a fallen statue of an Egyptian king that a traveler observed in a desert. The traveler describes how the head and the legs of the statue have broken apart, and the...

In the poem, Shelley describes the ruins of a once great statue of a sphinx intended to represent the almighty reign of Ramses II, also known as Ozymandias. However, instead of witnessing the...

The words "boundless and bare" in line 13 refer to the destruction of Ozymandias's kingdom. Where it once was, nothing is left except the sands of the desert stretching in every direction, and the...

Although "figures of speech" can be considered broadly to include both poetic (sound) techniques as well as non-literal language, this answer is restricted to figures of speech that are non-literal...

Ozymandias is an ancient Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh, Ramesses II (1279 BC—1213 BC). In the poem, a traveller discovers in a desert a broken, dilapidated statue of Ozymandias. The legs are...

In this line, the narrator means that nothing remains of Ozymandias's once mighty and fearsome kingdom but a broken statue on an empty desert that is filled with sand as far as the eye can see....

This piece is about an ancient pharaoh: Ozymandias was another name for Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet, "Ozymandias,"...

There are a few poetic devices in the poem which are not covered in previous answers, or which are covered only briefly. Probably the most important device in this poem is the symbolism of the...

The poem "Ozymandias" was written under interesting circumstances. Percy Bysshe Shelley entered into a personal contest with a friend to write about the same subject to see who could write the...

"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley is a poem that utilizes a slightly irregular version of the sonnet form. The rhythmical pattern of the lines is iambic pentameter. To unpack this, we describe...

There are three speakers in Shelley's poem "Ozymandias." The first is the narrator, who begins by immediately introducing a traveller that he met. In fact the, only words spoken by the narrator...

A "sneer" is usually deemed a disrespectful expression or attitude which is dismissive of others. When one has a "sneer" it means that one has a low opinion of or little care for the other at whom...

It's lines from Shelley's sonnet Ozymandias, and to make sense of it you need to put them in context. Here's the whole poem, with your lines in bold: I met a traveller from an antique landWho...

In my opinion, the theme of this poem is that human life and human accomplishments are transient. It is saying that, in the long run, nothing we do matters. It reminds me of a song from when I...

Throughout his life and career, Shelley was a political radical, a strong opponent of the Establishment into which he had been born. In particular, he was no respecter of kings, as his support for...

In “Ozymandias,” Percy Shelley uses alliteration, as noted above. Like most poets, he also employs several other sound devices that are similar to alliteration. In line four Shelley is describing...

The inscription on the pedestal reads: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" The words are a proclamation of Ozymandias' hubris. He saw his works as a...

Ozymandias, the Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, is portrayed in Shelley's poem as domineering and cruel. His face, sculpted on a monument that lies in the sand separated from his...

In the sonnet "Ozymandias" by Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, the audience can hear three different speakers. The first ten words are spoken by the narrator, who is the "I" of the poem, as he...

A moral of a story or work of literature is a lesson that the reader can take away regarding what is right, prudent, or good. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias," we can take several...

A staunch advocate of personal liberty, Percy Bysshe Shelly strongly despised tyranny exercised either by government or by church. All his major poems including Prometheus Unbound, Queen Mab and...

Ozymandias’s “half-sunk . . . shattered visage” carries a haughty expression of the greatest disdain: his lips are frowning in a “sneer,” and they are described as “wrinkled,” an interesting image...

Shelley himself was politically radical. A self-avowed atheist, who opposed war and monarchy, he was the author of many radical pamphlets. His poem "Ozymandias" expresses in dramatic terms his...

Shelley comments on the transitory nature of authority, power, prestige, and existence, while simultaneously examining how one's art can also have ephemeral qualities by portraying the dilapidated,...

Poet Percy Bysshe Shelley felt inspired to write the poem "Ozymandias" due to archeological discoveries being made in Egypt as a result of Napoleon's defeat of Egypt in 1798, nearly 20 years before...

The poem "Ozymandias" describes a statue that has collapsed in the middle of a desert. The statue serves as a symbol for human pride and power. It was commissioned by Ozymandias (the Greek name for...

The narrator of the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley tells a story of meeting a man who has traveled in Egypt. The traveler relates seeing the ruins of a once colossal statue of the...

"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was first published in the January 1818 issue of the magazine The Examiner. The poem is a fourteen-line Italian sonnet written in iambic...

Irony takes place when a given situation turns out to be quite different than initially expected, especially in a humorous or poignant way. As was mentioned in the previous post, the irony of the...

No identification is provided for the "traveler from an antique land." We have no way of determining if this person was male or female, young or old, educated formally in a school setting or...

Great poem and great posts! The irony is hard to miss, I think. Here we are in this wasteland of a desert. The last lines say the sand stretches far away, "lone and level," "boundless and...

Even though Ozymandias has been long dead by the time that the poem is set (this is in fact, the thematic crux of the poem—for all of his pride and arrogance and visions of everlasting fame,...

Here are the last three lines of the poem: Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away. The...

In the sonnet "Ozymandias" by Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, two narrators appear. The first line introduces the sonnet's narrator, the "I" of the poem, yet this character does not appear...

A critical appreciation of this poem relies on understanding the significance of the setting. The speaker reports a tale that he heard from a "traveller from an antique land," which introduces the...

The poem actually presents more than one message. Firstly, the poem emphasises the transient nature of existence. Time does not stand still and as it marches on, things change. All matter,...

"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley is an unusual sonnet. It has fourteen lines; yet, in the three quatrains of the poem, the thought from each is carried over to the next quatrain. The couplet...

Figurative language allows poets and writers to express concepts in unusual ways, making associations where ordinarily there would be no connection. Simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration,...

The lone and level sands represent or symbolize that nothing at all is left of Ozymandias's once-mighty kingdom except the broken statue of the tyrant. In the inscription on the statue, a sculpture...

Ozymandias is the Greek translation of a part of the official name of Ramesses II, who was the most powerful and influential of the pharoahs of the Nineteenth Dynasty in ancient Egypt. He was...