Ozymandias An Analysis Essay Examples

Shelley’s Ozymandias is an interesting sonnet. The overriding theme is of transience, and he uses elements of figurative language in order to accentuate and complement this theme.
Ozymandias takes the form of a sonnet in iambic pentameter. It is an odd combination of both the Petrarchan and the Shakespearian sonnet forms. The poem is fixated on transience; that the statue is a “colossal wreck” represents the idea that nothing lasts forever. However, the poem is not simply about how large sculptures finally submit to the consequences of time; the statue is a representation of Ozymandias' motivation, vanity, and complete power, and therefore the poem also suggests that kingdoms and political rules will ultimately dissolve, leaving no real hint of their presence. In this way, the whole poem is one extended metaphor.
There are various voices in the poem that create space between the reader and Ozymandias. Firstly, there is the speaker who meets a traveller. It is not long before the traveller’s voice takes over and remains until the end. The majority of the poem entails the traveller’s account of the statue in the desert, excluding the two lines where speaks of the engraving on the statue; and while the traveller’s voice owns these lines, they truly are of Ozymandias’ In this way, he becomes the third voice in this polyphonic piece.
Shelley uses alliteration to emphasize certain points in the poem, for example “boundless and bare,” and “lone and level.” Furthermore, Shelley has personified the “hand” and the “heart” so as to heighten the meaning of their line. As Ozymandias is inspired by a statue of Ramses II, it is unsurprising that the poem contains numerous mentions of the statue and of sculpting more largely. The “colossal” dimensions of the statue is a representation of Ramses' haughty royal aspiration. Nonetheless, statues and sculpture are not all negative in this piece; they are a channel for Shelley to discuss concepts concerning the permanence of art, and its capacity to encapsulate "passions" (6) in a "lifeless" (7) way such as with stone.
In line 2, the traveller refers to two “legs of stone” with the torso absent. This is the reader’s first sign that the statue is partially ruined. In line 4, the statue’s head is “shatter'd” and partly submerged in sand. In lines 6-7, the sculptor symbolises Ramses' “passions” in the figure, which are etched in stone. Despite the fact that the stones are “lifeless,” they ironically provide life to the “passions.”
The poem contains a great deal of death; the figure depicted in the sculpture is deceased, as is the civilization of which he was part. The statue is devastated, and in this way it could also be perceived as dead. Nonetheless, amid all this fatality, there are some images of life which provide Ozymandias with a degree of balance. The opening two lines of the poem demonstrate a meeting between two living individuals, the speaker and a “traveler from an antique land.” Furthermore, lines 6-7 injects the “sculptor,” an additional living person, into the setting, as does the allusion to “passions” of Ozymandias.
Shelley has combined various poetic techniques in creating this poem. The use of figurative language serve to highlight the poet’s complex choice of theme: transience.