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Ozymandias
Irony occurs when events turn out in an opposite way from what we expect. "Ozymandias" explores the irony of Ozymandias believing he was a great ruler whose kingdom would continue forever....
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Ozymandias
In the story of Moses, Ramses believed that he could stand against the power of God. His earthly power delivered to him through his hereditary position wasn't a match for a spiritual power wielded...
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Ozymandias
Subordinates usually enable difficult leaders because they share the same ideology or because they are scared of the leader. For Ozymandias, the people surrounding him likely benefitted from his...
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Ozymandias
In Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias,” the poet describes the remnants of a sculpture of the thirteenth-century Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II, known for his ostentatious and excessive...
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Ozymandias
Although Percy Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is a short poem of only fourteen lines (a sonnet), there are actually three speakers involved. The first speaker is the narrator’s voice. He gives us these ten...
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Ozymandias
Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias" is primarily concerned with the transitory nature of the human condition. Ozymandias assumed that his reputation would endure indefinitely, and his various works with...
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Ozymandias
In both poems, false thinking that bases power on fear and violence is show to be a problem. Blake explores this through showing a London society living in "woe," while Shelley shows this through...
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Ozymandias
The lines that describe the expression on the statue's face in Shelley's "Ozymandias" are as follows: Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,...
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Ozymandias
Ozymandias was a real person, an Egyptian pharaoh also known by the name of Ramesses II. It is generally believed that Shelley was inspired to write the poem after the recent acquisition of a large...
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Ozymandias
One way to compare the themes of "Ozymandias" and Antigone is to think of Ozymandias as a symbol of or a soul-mate to Creon, Antigone's uncle. Through the greater part of the play, Creon is ruling...
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Ozymandias
This poem helps us to gain a better understanding of the world around us and the way in which the world works by conveying the idea that nothing lasts forever, no matter how powerful or significant...
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Ozymandias
In the fifth line of Percy Bysshe Shelley's celebrated poem "Ozymandias," he employs the literary device known as personification. Shelly utilizes personification by writing, "And wrinkled lip, and...
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Ozymandias
In Shelley's classic poem "Ozymandias," the narrator recounts an interaction he had with an unnamed traveler, who described the ruins of the once great tomb of Ramses II, also known as Ozymandias....
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Ozymandias
The traveller has more admiration for the sculptor than his subject. The traveller shows his admiration for the sculptor's talent as an artist when he says that the man did a good job of capturing...
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Ozymandias
In Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias is a long-gone ruler (also called Ramses II) of Egypt. The body of the statue now lies on the ground—whether toppled by his followers or competitors or...
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Ozymandias
The poem suggests that Ozymandias was a domineering, authoritarian, who attempted to intimidate his enemies and rule over his subjects with an iron fist. Ozymandias's broken, decaying statue...
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Ozymandias
There are a few hints in the poem as to what Ozymandias's kingdom might have been like when the sculpture was created. For example, on the face of the statue there is a "wrinkled lip, and sneer of...
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Ozymandias
The sculptor's work has technically lasted longer, but the two works are intimately connected; the state of one is symbolic of the other. When the powerful king Ozymandias ordered this monument to...
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Ozymandias
In "Ozymandias," the statue seems to have been destroyed by the ravages of time. This is actually a common tendency among ancient structures: if you ever travel to ancient sites of civilization,...
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Ozymandias
A metaphor directly equates two things which in literal terms are unrelated. There are multiple examples of metaphor in "Ozymandias," not limited to the ones listed below. The first is found in the...
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Ozymandias
The speaker who begins the poem relates a tale once told to him by a traveler he'd met. This traveler had been to the desert, where he saw the broken pieces of a once-great statue all scattered and...
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Ozymandias
First, there is the voice of the unnamed narrator, a person who identifies him or herself with the first-person pronoun "I" in the first line. This person only speaks for the first line and a...
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Ozymandias
The poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) is about the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II, who in the thirteenth Century BCE ordered the construction of many temples and palaces as well as...
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Ozymandias
Format and Rhythm Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem Ozymandias follows a closed form, meaning that it is subject to a fixed structure and pattern, as follows: It is a 14-line sonnet, metered in iambic...
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Ozymandias
In literal terms, Shelley is highlighting the isolation and flatness of the arid desert landscape into which Ozymandias's once-imposing statue has crumbled. In his monumental arrogance, the...
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Ozymandias
In the poem, the words on the pedestal read, My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! These words certainly contrast with what we are told of Ozymandias's...
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Ozymandias
The speaker seems to feel a sense of sadness at futility of human ambition and the desire of some, like Ozymandias, for tyranny. As he tells his story to a friend, the speaker focuses on the broken...
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Ozymandias
In this poem, a traveler has told the speaker about an ancient ruin. The speaker relates this experience to us. He says that the sculptor had created a monument to Ozymandias, also known as Ramses...
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Ozymandias
There are a number of poetic devices at work in Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias." Three of the most effective are the alliteration, metaphor, and personification that appear in the work. They...
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Ozymandias
"Ozymandias" is written in iambic pentameter. This is a meter in which a line has five pairs of two syllables, for a total of ten syllables. In an iambic meter, the stress falls on the second...
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Ozymandias
The broken statue of Ozymandias symbolizes the false power a tyrant holds. Ozymandias had a huge ego and thought he was magnificent and great. He also thought that the empire he built would last...
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Ozymandias
"Ozymandias" is set in a desert. This setting is an important part of the story Shelley is telling through this sonnet. A traveller who is traversing the desert comes upon the broken statue of the...
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Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem encompasses the theme of death because it is about the passage, of all worldly things and people, into oblivion. The pharaoh Ozymandias constructed great works to make...
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Ozymandias
The inscription on the pedestal of Ozymandias’s statue read, “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” The fact that he called himself the “King of Kings”...
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Ozymandias
Ozymandias, also known as Ramses II, is the subject of this statue. The narrator, relating what he's heard from the traveler, notes that the statue's visage (face) had a frown, a "wrinkled lip, and...
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Ozymandias
“Ozymandias” is a classic poem that addresses the hubris of its title king, who falsely believed the world would remember his empire long after he was gone. Some other poems that deal with similar...
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Ozymandias
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...
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Ozymandias
Shelley is referring here to the vast expanses of desert that surround Ozymandias's crumbling wreck of a statue. The desert is boundless in that, as far as the eye can see, it never ends. Whichever...
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Ozymandias
It's an interesting point for you to analyze the role of the traveller in Shelley's poem. There are many personas to analyze in the poem, but the traveller is an interesting one because it is this...
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Ozymandias
"Ozymandias," a simple, one-word title, suggests the focus of the poem will be on Ozymandias, whoever that might be. The name sounds "Oriental," and at the time Shelley wrote the poem, in 1819,...
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Ozymandias
The traveler describes the visage (face) of the statue of Ozymandias as having a frown and a "wrinkled lip." These facial gestures suggest haughtiness, an expression of someone who feels superior...
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Ozymandias
A sphinx is a mythical creature with the body of a lion and a human head. They are usually associated with royal tombs and the most famous one is at Giza. Kings made these structures for reasons...
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Ozymandias
I think that the vision of Ozymandias tells us a couple of things about Romantics. The first would be that there was a strong desire to reconfigure time. For the Romantics, time was something...
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Ozymandias
First, what we have is a poet's retelling of a traveler's account (actually Diodorus Siculus, an historian, not a traveler) of a sculptor's vision of Ozymandias, and thus we are only getting a...
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Ozymandias
King Ozymandias, who had a huge statue built of himself, was claiming to be the greatest of kings. In the ancient world, kingdoms were typically very small. Most kings were what we would today...
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Ozymandias
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair! The context of the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley brings an added bonus to this classic poem. Shelley...
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Ozymandias
Any inquiry into the social personality of a fictive character must begin with a strong reminder to the reader of the "fictiveness." In other words, whatever the evidence for a real historical...
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Ozymandias
In "Ozymandias," the speaker recalls what a traveller from an ancient land (Egypt) tells him about a relic. He describes a ruin of a monument to Ozymandias (Greek for Ramses II). In this sonnet,...
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Ozymandias
Two contrasting images might be the broken sculpture and the sand. One is man-made and in ruins; the second is natural and enduring. The irony of the poem is primarily found in the last lines,...
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Ozymandias
The traveler describes the ruins of a once great statue. The shattered face ("visage") of the statue is that of Ozymandias, also known as Ramses II. The face of the ruler is frowning, with a...
