Ozymandias

Both situational and dramatic irony are used to convey the poem's central purpose: that all human beings and all human achievements are temporal and fleeting. No matter how prideful we are or how...

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 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...

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 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...

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...

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 "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...

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 meaning of "Ozymandias" is that any power or status one may have while alive will eventually crumble and be lost in the depths of history. One must die in the end. The pedestal demonstrates...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

"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...

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...

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 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....

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...

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...

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...

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,"...

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...

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...

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...

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 words on the pedestal imply that Ozymandias was a great ruler who believed his reign to be important to the history of man. The words read: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my...

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...

The Ozymandias of Shelley's poem is, ultimately, a testament to men's hubris. Such was his pride that Ozymandias declared himself "King of Kings" (an allusion to the Bible, in which the King of...

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,...

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 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...

Readers will respond differently to this poem, but one common reaction would be to experience a feeling of desolation. One might also come away with a sense of the futility of the kind of tyrannous...

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...

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...

The great pharaoh Ozymandias, otherwise known as Ramses II, clearly thought very highly of himself. On the pedestal of his crumbling statue in the desert are the words “Look on my Works, ye Mighty,...

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,...

In this poem, the word "despair" has a double meaning. Its first is the meaning that Ozymandias intended. He wants other rulers to look at his mighty kingdom—his "works"—and despair of even...

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”...

"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...

The face is partly buried in the sand and the face is "shattered" and eroded. The face has a frown, a "wrinkled lip" and a "sneer of cold command." Although the statue was commissioned by...

Ozymandias by Percy Byssche Shelley relates the tale of the once proud and defiant Ozymandias, king of all he surveyed. The story is told by a narrator who "met a traveler from an antique land."...