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Ozymandias’ by percy bysshe shelley english essay
Ozymandias’ by percy bysshe shelley english essay
Tyranny in literature
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What is the one thing that the world’s most tyrannical rulers have in common? They all have failed at trying to rule the world. At the time of their ruling, they feel like they are too superior to fail and cannot be stopped. As time plays out though, they all fall and are forgotten about. This subject inspired Percy Bysshe Shelley to write one of the most well known sonnets of all time in “Ozymandias.” Before Shelley began writing “Ozymandias”, he was writing sonnets that his disliking toward the tyranny ruling over England at the time King George III. Shelley felt like this world had no place for people who felt they were superior over others. ”Ozymandias” was just his way of showing them how they would end up if they did try to rule the world.
Ozymandias tells the story of a traveler who is telling about his trip to Egypt. He says he saw “Two vast and trunk less legs of stone” this indicates that this was probably once a statue. He says that this once sculpture is now nothing more than a half sunk shattered visage. The narrator then finds the head of the statue with a “half wrinkle...
Sculpture is a medium that artists in ancient Greek commonly used to express spoken truths in an unspoken form. Every piece of ancient Greek sculpture has more than what the eye sees to explain the story behind the [in this case] marble.
Ramesses II is particularly well known due to the exceptional longevity of his reign and his military campaigns, which he commemorated frequently in his massive campaign of construction projects. The details of his reign can help to shed some light on this cube statue. One of the more unusual aspects of the sculpture is that it was altered after its initial production; both the inscribed hieroglyphics and the side-lock were later additions to a preexisting statue. The reworking of old art is a relatively common phenomenon in Ancient Egyptian culture and there are several possible possible explanations for this distinctive feature. One possible explanation for the refurbishment is that the sculpture was originally made for the prince and was updated at a later date to reflect a change in his status. This hypothesis may explain the addition of the hieroglyphic text, which does give his military titles, but it has significantly less explanatory power with regard to the side-lock. Because the it is a symbol of the royal youths and thus would have been associated with the prince from a young age, it would would be strange if he were to have been originally depicted with a round headdress with the side-lock added
Shelley, Percy. “Written Among The Euganean Hills, North Italy,” English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Huston, Kristin N. "Percy Shelley and Lord Byron." UMKC Campus, Kansas City. 20 Sept. 2010. Lecture.
Many times throughout history, one person has tried to prove themselves better than God or nature. Nature, however, always prevails in the end. The Romantics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries believed that nature was a glorious and powerful force that was one with God, and emphasized this point in their works. Two such romantics were the couple Percy and Mary Shelley, who through their works Ozymandias and Frankenstein, showed the disastrous consequences defying nature could have. Both authors had experienced loss; the loss of some of their children and later Mary’s loss of Percy in a boating accident. These experiences showed them how powerful nature was, and how pointless it was to defy it. Both Mary and Percy’s belief in this showed through in their writing. So, despite how different Frankenstein and Ozymandias seem at first, both works reveal a common lesson: One should never believe themselves to be above nature, and if one does it will never end well.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Multibility.” The Norton Anthology English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. 647.
Shelley envisioned a strong sense of humanity in her novel. She encapsulated the quintessence of the period in which she lived by expressing ideologies, such as humanity’s relationship with God and the hypothesis of nature versus nurture. The relationship with God was vividly changed during the industrial era.
For practically all of her life, powerful and knowledgeable figures surrounded Shelley. William Godwin, Shelley’s father, made a name for himself with his political and moral ramblings, however the passion he found in academic pursuits lacked in other areas, such as raising his own children. In her introduction to the novel, Maurice Hindle noted that Godwin preferred to provide “life proposals and solutions in the abstract” rather than actual hands on experience with the children (xv). Despite this, Shelley still held her father on a pedestal, even going so far as to write to friends and admit that Godwin “was her God” until she met her husband, Percy (xvi). In addition to his brilliant philosophical mind, which was not unlike Godwin’s, Percy also thrived in the field of science, particularly fascinated with experimenting with electric currents (xxv). Shelley goes on to say that although her father held high expectations for her to “be something great and good” when she was younger, Percy reiterated this decree after she met him (xvi). In a cruel bit of irony, Percy died while sailing his boat during a storm; essentially losing his life to the power of nature well beyond man’s control. Between these two men, Shelley had the perfect inspiration for both Walton and Victor’s defining characteristic: a desire to become legends, no matter what the
King George is “old, mad, blind, despised, and dying”; the princes have become cold and selfish draining their country dry, fighting for the throne; the people are starving, depressed, and their crops are failing; the army and church are consumed with greed and takes from its own people; the laws remain unenforced, and Parliament is “Time’s worst statute unrepealed”(“1819” 12) These are all symptoms of a failing government, which I interpret leads Shelley to his last lines, and prediction, of his poem, “Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may/ Burst, to illuminate our tempestous day”(“1819” 13-14). I think Shelley was convinced that the only hope in humanity is through violent revolution or “a Phantom of light from graves”. I believe this poem warns humanity of handing its power to the one percent, especially when that party reaps the most benefits of its advanced nation. Again implying democracy is the only system of government that can possibly work for the whole when given the power of
Bloom, Harold and Golding, William. Modern Critical Views on Mary Shelley. Edited with an introduction by Harold Bloom. Chelsea House Publishers, New York, 1985.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. Prometheus Unbound. Shelley’s Poetry and Prose. Ed. Donald H. Reiman and Neil Fraistat. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2002. 206-283.
...e common people. Mary Shelley writes most of the common people as fallen from power and riches. Namely this does not follow the elements of romanticism and relates back to earlier literature.
Thesis: There was no end to the apparent contradictions of personal philosophy versus popular culture, and what Shelley actually accomplished in his short life. Shelley was cognoscente of this contradiction, as can be seen in his Preface to The Revolt of Islam, and it continually shadowed his career.
As a child Percy was carefree and independent going wherever he pleased and exploring his surroundings. He learned to fish and hunt in the meadows encompassing his home, he often surveyed the rivers and fields with his cousin and close friend Thomas Medwin. “…insanity hung as by a hair suspended over the head of Shelley” (“Percy Bysshe Shelley”). At the age ...
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “A Defence of Poetry.” The Longman Anthology: British Literature: Volume 2A – The Romantics and Their Contemporaries. Ed. David Damrosch. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 801-810.