SonnetRomantic · 18183 min · 4 passagesGentle

Ozymandias

A sonnet built like a rumour passed hand to hand. Watch how Shelley lets a tyrant's own boast destroy him — and listen for the moment the rhyme scheme starts to slip.

Power Mortality Empire Art & Imagination

0 / 4 understood

Lines 1–5

Framed narration

I met a traveller from an , Who said—“Two vast and of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and ,

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Plain English

I met someone who had travelled from an ancient country. They told me that two huge stone legs stand in the desert with no body above them, and nearby a broken face lies half buried in the sand. The face is scowling, with a curled lip and the sneer of someone used to giving orders.

Lines 6–8

Irony

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;

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Plain English

The face tells you that the sculptor understood the king's feelings perfectly. Those feelings are still readable on the stone long after both men are gone: the sculptor's hand copied them, and the king's heart supplied them.

Lines 9–11

Dramatic irony

And on the , these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, Mighty, and !

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Plain English

The base of the statue is carved with a boast: I am Ozymandias, king above all kings. Any other powerful person should look at what I built and give up hope of matching it.

Lines 12–14

Understatement

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that Wreck, and The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

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Plain English

Nothing else is left. Around the wreck of the statue, empty flat desert stretches out in every direction, as far as you can see.

Test what you noticed

The Fire · Romantic poetry

One self, one landscape, one enormous feeling. Every answer comes with the reason and the line that proves it.

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Mortality — how other works handle it →Power — how other works handle it →

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