Ozmandias

1. What kind of man was the Pharaoh Ozymandias, do you think? Quote from the poem to substantiate your answer.

I think that Pharaoh Ozymandias was a strong and powerful ruler in this “ancient land” that the traveler refers to. The phrase “sneer of cold command” suggests he was a dictator and ruled with fear and not well liked by the people he ruled over. In line 11, the plural is used for the word “works”, this suggesting that the king must have had plenty, so thus very wealthy. He also is portrayed at being very arrogant and vain in line 11 “Look at my works, ye mighty, and despair!” where is boasting about his works and telling everyone to look at them and see how mighty he is. Although the inscription at the foot of the statue reveals to us who this poem is about, it also shows his idea of his own power calling himself “king of kings”.

2. The poet takes great care to describe, in lines 4 and 5, the ‘passions’ of Ozymandias that are ‘stamped on these lifeless things’ (line 7). What is the effect of the juxtaposition of ‘passions’ and ‘lifeless’? What is Shelley suggesting about human ambition?

The passions of Ozymandias that are described in lines 4 and 5 “frown, wrinkled lip and sneer” show the type of leader he was that put fear into those he ruled and looked at his subjects as if they were unworthy. And then the use of the phase “stamped on these lifeless things” is saying that those passions is all that is left behind on the statue. The juxtaposition here is that passions suggests life and lifeless suggests death. What the poet is suggesting about human ambition is that Ozymandias ruled with fear and now that that fear is gone the ruler is forgotten. It suggests that the legacy you leave behind should be more than those “passions”.

3. The ‘hand’ and the ‘heart’ (line 8) are, of course, the hand and heart of the sculptor, not Ozymandias. Discuss the irony in this fact, referring particularly to lines 10 and 11.

My interpretation of line 8 is that the “hand” of the sculptor is referring to the sculptors physical abilities to “mock” or copy or create the passions of Ozymandias that he is trying to recreate and portray. The “heart that fed” I presume is referring to the passions of the sculptor that drives his talents to create Ozymandias. These could be passions of admiration or hatred. It is ironic then that Ozymandias calls upon his subjets to “look upon my works” when there is nothing left to see apart from a pile of shattered rubble in the sand. All that remains for people to see is his “frown, wrinkled lip and sneer” that was created by the sculptor.

4. An atmosphere of degeneration and despair is created in the poem. How does the poet achieve this? Quote from the poem to substantiate your answer.

The poet uses words such as “shattered, trunkless, lifeless and decay” to create an atmosphere of degeneration and despair. All these words build a picture in our minds of a fallen leader and the degeneration of his statue also becomes a symbol of Ozymandias’ own end to power. An atmosphere of despair is also created by the poet by the words and phrases which describe Ozymandias such as “frown, wrinkled lip and sneer” which conveys the nature of Ozymandias as a person and leader and hence we imagine the despair people lived in under his rule.

5. The poet makes use of the poetic device of alliteration in the last two lines. Identify the words that make up this figure of speech and comment on the effect this device creates here

The alliterative words used in the last two lines of the poem are as follows: “boundless and bare”, lone and level”, and “sands and stretch”. Alliteration creates a musical effect in the test and enhances the pleasure of reading the poem, it also makes the poem easier to remember. Here the poet is specifically wanting us to remember the last two lines. All these words use alliteration to convey the main message of the poem, that no matter how mighty and powerful a ruler or civilization may be it will all eventually fall into decay, dust and ruin.