Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽'s Reviews > Ozymandias

In preparation for reading Connie Willis's latest novella, I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land, I went back and read Percy Bysshe Shelly's famous Romantic-era sonnet Ozymandias, which is the source for her title and informs her story. Here's the poem in its entirety:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I think this is my favorite work by Shelley (I studied quite a few of his works back in my college English major days). His imagery is wonderful: you can see the ancient, broken statue in the middle of a desolate desert. The dual meaning of the word "despair": Ozymandias (a Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II) means for everyone else to fear his might and power, but now we despair because nothing man-made lasts forever, no matter how great.

Shelly made up his own rhyme scheme for this sonnet (for the curious, it's ababa cdced efef, rather than something more typical like the Shakespearean rhyme scheme, abab cdcd efef gg). It adds to the general sense of unease this poem leave you with.

A couple of other insights: Note Ozymandias's use of the phrase "King of Kings" to describe himself. It's a phrase used in the Bible in reference to Jesus Christ ... so Ozymandias considered himself near-divine. Shelley also uses alliteration to great effect in this poem, with phrases like "cold command," "boundless and bare," and "lone and level."

The message of this poem is a great lesson for our day as well, slashing at the pretensions and self-grandeur of political leaders. And that's all I'm going to say about that. :)

But I have to say, I'm still trying to figure out what exactly Shelly was trying to convey with the lines "The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed." Scholars are still scratching their heads, so I'm in good company. It does seem to be the sculptor's hand and heart, rather than Ozymandias's, as I originally thought? (*ETA: See comment 2: I've changed my mind again.) Feel free to comment.

There are some great illustrations for this poem. Here's another: