Essays on Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” focuses on the trend toward decline that always takes hold of the leaders of empires, particularly when they turn their attention away from fostering the growth of their people and toward perpetuating their own memories. Their pride shows forth in the erection of giant statues of themselves, on which they have artisans engrave all sorts of grandiose quotations about the unlimited power of their rule. They forget, of course, that all of us – not just individuals, but societies and countries – will come to an end at some point. This pride that makes people ...

Alan Moore`s Watchmen may be considered to be one of the most controversial but capturing comic-book series ever made. Quotes from this comic book along with some characters have merged with pop culture forever, thus proving its uniqueness and gripping beauty. Moreover, this exceptional comic book presents reader with extraordinary portrayal of superheroes. Moore completely distorts all superhero clichés instead depicting real people with all their flaws and anxieties and without outstanding superpowers, the exception makes only Dr. Manhattan. Moreover, by manipulating and speculating with turning points in history of the US, like the Vietnam War or ...

Inspired by Greek historian Diodorus Siculus’s record of King Ramses II of Egypt, poet Percy Bysshe Shelly wrote the sonnet Ozymandias, which is the Greek form of the king’s name (Black, 2010). The sonnet resonates with the free-flowing imaginative and emotive style distinctive of the romantic era (Morner, 1997). Shelly had written the sonnet in a friendly competition with his friend Horace Smith, and it was first published under the pen name Glirastes in 1818 in a weekly London literary paper, The Examiner (Ozymandias). The fourteen-line sonnet is expressed as the contemplations of a traveller on the statute of King ...