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OZYMANDIAS This is a poem which has the structure of a sonnet by Percy B. Shelley, and it was written in the Romanticist period (18th-19th century), during the reign of George III. Although, Ozymandias does not have the classical structure of a sonnet, it also has 14 lines and it can be divided into two parts: an octave and a sestet. The subject of this poem is the power of a person which is temporary. In this poem, that person is the king, who erected a statue to prove his power but , it was destroyed by the passage of time. It can be said that the poem has 3 voices: the first “I” is someone who met a traveller, who is the second voice of the poem. This traveller starts to talk about the statue he saw in the “antique land”, and there are two lines, in which the traveller said what was written in the base of the statue. This part is told by Ozymandias, the king. The addressee could be the person the traveller met since the traveller is telling the story to someone, or it could be the reader. As I explained before, the poem could be divided in an octave and a sestet: in the octave, someone met a traveller who has been to an “antique land”, which is Egypt, and starts to explain that he saw the legs of a statue made of stone in the desert, and the upper body of the statue was missing, that is said in line 2, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone”. It is also mentioned that the face was lying on the sand next to the legs, and it was broken; moreover, the rests of this statue belong to the king Ozymandias. He continues explaining that the statue had an angry face (“frown”), wrinkled lips and the cold and emotionless expression of a dominant (“sneer of cold command”). Then, it is talked about the sculptor, who analysed the expressions of the king very well, and copied them on the statue. In the last part of the octave, a hand and a heart are mentioned (“The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed”): the hands refers to the sculptor’s hands, who was the one who elaborate the statue; while the heart refers to the king, the one that had those expressions. In the sestet, it shows how proud Ozymandias is of his statue. In this part, the third speaker is shown, which is the King. The traveller explains that there was a pedestal, which is the base of the statue, in which you could see something written: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings/look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”. Here, Ozymandias described himself as the King of the Kings, and then, he said “look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”. With mighty, he is referring to other kings and despair means being hopeless; thus, he is saying to all the powerful kings of the world to look at his works (the statue), and they should feel sad or hopeless. In the last part of the poem, it is said that only the platform of the statue remains today since the statue has been completely destroyed. Then, it is said that around the remains, there is a huge dessert, but without the statue; thus, the only thing that is visible now is a large stretch of sand. It can be said that this poem is narrating the story of what a traveller saw, and the title, “Ozymandias”, refers to the throne name of the Egyptian king Ramesses II. This poem has a conclusion, which is that even though you could have all the power in this world, with the passage of time, that power can become nothing, nothing lasts forever. The author is using an ironic tone since it looks like he is mocking the king.

As far as imagery and linguistic and rhetorical features are concerned, this poem is characterized by a synecdoche in line 8, where “the hand” refers to the sculptor’s hand and “the heart that fed”, refers to the king Ozymandias. There are also some alliterations, which can be seen with the use of /t/ in line 2, “two vast and trunkless”; /c/ in line 5 with “cold command”; /b/ in line 13 with “boundless and bare”; /l/ in line 14 with “lone and level”; and /s/ in the same line with “sands stretch”. We can also see the figure of oxymoron in line 13 with “colossal wreck”, that is comparing two opposite words. There is irony along the poem since the king is being described ad fierce and powerful, but in the reality, there is a broken statue. Furthermore, a hyperbole is shown when in the line 10 appears “king of kings” since he is exaggerating his power; and last but not least there are two enjambments in lines 2 and 6. The rhyming pattern of this poem is different from the conventional sonnet and it would be ABABACDC EDFGFG. I would like to conclude the analysis of this sonnet by pointing out how intertextuality works in “Ozymandias”. Shelley’s poem resembles to Shakespeare’s sonnet 18. While Ozymandias talks about the statue of a powerful king, which finish destroyed by the passage of time, sonnet 18 talks about the comparison between nature and a beautiful woman and how her beauty die out as time goes by. Thus, both poems use metaphor to explain that everything is temporary. It is also remarkable to say that the name “Ozymandias” is the Greek name for Ramesses II....