Analysis of Poem 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley

This is an analysis of Ozymandias, a poem written by one of the greatest Romantic poets in history, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley never achieved fame while he was alive, but he did keep company with some extremely talented writers: his good friends included Lord Byron, George Gordon and John Keats. He was married to Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. Shelley most popular works include Ozymandias, To a Skylark, and Prometheus Unbound, which is probably his most lauded work. Born into a well-to-do family, Shelley eventually attended Oxford, where he first started his writing career. He was expelled, however, when he refused to admit that he was the author of an anonymous text on atheism. Shelley met and fell in love with a young Mary Godwin, even though he was already married. He abandoned his family to be with her; they married after his first wife committed suicide, and Mary changed her surname to Shelley. Tragically, Shelley died young, at the age of 29, when the boat he was sailing got caught in a storm. His body washed to shore some time later.

Summary of Ozymandias

In this poem, the speaker describes meeting a traveler “from an antique land.” The title, ‘Ozymandias’, notifies the reader that this land is most probably Egypt, since Ozymandias was what the Greeks called Ramses II, a great and terrible pharaoh in ancient Egypt. The traveler tells a story to the speaker. In the story, he describes visiting Egypt and seeing a large and intimidating statue in the sand. He can tell that the sculptor must have known his subject well because it is obvious from the statues face that this man was a great leader, but one who could also be very vicious: he describes his sneer as having a “cold command.” Even though the leader was probably very great, it seems that the only thing that survives from his realm is this statue, which is half buried and somewhat falling apart.

Breakdown Analysis of Ozymandias

To start, Ozymandias carries an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem. All around the traveler is desert—nothing is green or growing; the land is barren. The statue, however, still boasts of the accomplishments this civilization had in the past. The desert represents the fall of all empires—nothing powerful and rich can ever stay that strong forever. This metaphor is made even more commanding in the poem by Shelley’s use of an actual ruler—Shelley utilizes an allusion to a powerful ruler in ancient Egypt to show that even someone so all-powerful will eventually fall.

The sonnet itself reads more like a story than a poem, although the line rhymes do help to remind the reader that this is not prose. The speaker in the poem, perhaps Percy Bysshe Shelley, tells the story from his point of view, using the pronoun “I.” The first line reads, “I met a traveler from an antique land…” At first, this line is a tad ambiguous: Is the traveler from an antique land, or did he just come back from visiting one? The reader also does not know where the speaker first met this sojourner. The title indicates which land the traveler has visited: The Greeks called Ramses II, a powerful Egyptian pharaoh, Ozymandias, so it is easy for the reader to recognize the antique land as Egypt, one of the oldest civilizations in the world. The lines that follow are much clearer than the first, however, and it is clear to the reader what,

exactly, is occurring in the sonnet. The rest of the sonnet is actually written in dialogue; the traveler is recounting his experiences in Egypt to the poem’s speaker. Lines two through fourteen are only one sentence in length, as well. These lines also contain some of the most vivid and beautiful imagery in all of poetry. Shelley was such a masterful writer that it does not take much effort on the part of the reader to clearly imagine the scene in this poem. In lines two through five, the traveler describes a statue he sees in Egypt. Shelley writes:

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…

In these lines, the reader, through the eyes of the traveler, sees two massive legs carved from stone lying in the desert sand. Nearby, the face of the statue is half-buried. The face is broken, but the traveler can still see the sculpture is wearing a frown and a sneer. From this, he is able to tell that this ruler probably had absolutely power, and he most definitely ruled with an iron fist. It is also easy to interpret that this ruler probably had a lot of pride as the supreme leader of his civilization.

The traveler then turns his attention to the sculptor who made the statue, commenting that whomever the sculptor is, he knew his subject very well. Shelley writes, “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read/Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things…” Shelley also seems to be commenting in line seven that while there is an end to natural life.