Themes: The Transience of Glory

The setting of Shelley's poem, a desert as described to the speaker, is symbolic of bleakness and emptiness. But evidently a great kingdom existed there at one time, as evidenced by the ruins of the eponymous king's image. So, readers are immediately told that although something or someone "great" once was there, now there is nothing but desolation. This is an "antique land." Whatever resulted in the ruins of the statue, the head severed from...

Themes: The Illusion of Power

The fate of Ozymandias leads one to ask what this king accomplished in his lifetime and for posterity. What the traveler has seen on the remaining visage is a "sneer of cold command." The phrase conveys something about the nature of "command": it's based on cruelty. In itself it gives the key to the wreckage of Ozymandias lying in the sand. Shelley's message is a paraphrase of the scriptural wisdom that those who live by the sword shall perish by...

Themes: The Vastness of Nature

Perhaps the most striking feature of "Ozymandias" is the setting in which the traveler finds the statue's ruins. Though Shelley's description of it is brief, the significance of it is obvious, as the poem concludes:

. . . boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Shelley conveys both the enormity and, perhaps paradoxically, the monotony of the landscape. It is empty and it stretches on forever, in contrast to the impermanence of...

Themes: The Survival of Art

Shelley's subtext is arguably that art survives, even when men and their "power" do not. Everything else has disappeared, but a piece of sculpture, though a ruin, still exists in this vast empty space devoid of anything else. Were it not for the artist who created that statue, there would be no evidence at all of Ozymandias.

The concept that art endows its subject with meaning is a trope that has been a constant of literary history. With a kind of...

Themes: Transitory Nature of Life and Fame

“Ozymandias” is at first glance a sonnet about the transitory nature of life and its pretensions of fame and fortune. The decaying, ancient statue bears witness to the fact that the pursuit of power and glory for their own sakes are not only fleeting, but they are also illusory, unworthy ambitions even within the lifetime of their seekers.

Themes: Critique of the 'Great Man' Theory

The nineteenth century was filled with “discoveries” of ancient landscapes, built upon a historiography of “great men,” who were to elicit the attention and admiration of a generation of scholars and writers. Shelley chose, however, to poke holes in the “great man” theory of history, questioning its validity and its rationality.

Themes: Ephemeral Nature of Artistic Work

The poem also works on another level, however—as a candid, poignant confession by the artist that his work is also ephemeral, and that as style, manner, and fashion change, so do reputation and honor. Such a confessional spirit was particularly appropriate for Shelley and other Romantics, that clan of “rebel spirits”—among them William Blake; George Gordon; Lord Byron; John Keats; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; and William Wordsworth.

Themes: Romantic Rebellion Against Tradition

This new generation of poets flouted tradition, inventing their own vocabularies, subject matters, and poetic form, and generally laboring to raise the poet’s consciousness of his own imagination to an unprecedented level. “Ozymandias” exemplifies both in theme and in execution these “rebellious” notions.

Often, the poet himself was the topic and focus of his poetry, rather than the grander themes of man and God or the courtship of...

Themes: Artist as Arbiter of Morality and Political Order

More than that, Shelley, in works such as Prometheus Unbound (1820) and A Defence of Poetry (1840), attempted to create a public persona for the poet as an arbiter of morality, genius, and political order. Thus, the Romantic, as exemplified in Shelley himself, was peculiarly subject to the rather pretentious self-promotion of his vocation—not unlike the wizened Ozymandias of his sonnet.

Themes: Warning Against Vanity and Self-Promotion

The ancient king’s narcissism, his relentless declarations of immortality and supremacy, might serve as warning also to the artist whose folly may lead him to similar vanity. Read this way, “Ozymandias” is a sober exhortation to poets and politicians alike to foster realistic assessments of their influence and worth; the disposition to make truth serve the selfish ends of vainglorious men is a theme of history Shelley discerned well in his own...

Themes: Impermanence

The theme of impermanence is central to Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ozymandias." Through the depiction of a ruined statue in the desert, Shelley explores the transient nature of power and human achievements. The poem serves as a reminder that even the mightiest rulers and their grandest works will eventually fade into obscurity, leaving behind only remnants of their former glory.

The poem begins with a traveler recounting the sight of a shattered...

Themes: Arrogance

In "Ozymandias," Percy Bysshe Shelley explores the theme of arrogance through the depiction of a once-mighty ruler whose legacy has crumbled into oblivion. The poem serves as a stark reminder of the transience of human power and the futility of pride. Ozymandias, a great king, believed his achievements would immortalize him, yet all that remains of his grandeur is a ruined statue in a desolate desert. Shelley's portrayal of Ozymandias's arrogance...