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Critical analysis of ozymandias
Ozymandias essay analysis
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Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”
This is a profound statement ascribed to one of the most powerful pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Yet, as Percy Shelly writes, the “works,” due to the sands of time, have vanished – “of that colossal wreck… the long and level sands stretch far away” (13-14). At his zenith, Ozymandias believed his empire was timeless and would inspire “despair” in all those who labored to match his accomplishments. But the monuments, his self-praising idols, and, in sum, his empire have all but eroded away. In such a way, Ozymandias emphasizes the frailty of mankind in the thread of measureless time. It’s not happenstance that one of the main characters in the movie Watchmen refers to himself as Ozymandias. Adrian Alexander Viedt, the smartest and one of the most powerful individuals on Earth, is a contemporary version of the Egyptian king. Though, Adrian Viedt masterfully averted the looming nuclear war and created his utopia in the movie, his feats are concealed to the public just as Ozymandias’s vast empire has been forgotten in the modern world. An awareness of the poem “Ozymandias” aids the viewer in analyzing the fundamental issue – the pervasive fallacy of power and divinity - in the film Watchmen.
The unusual structure of the poem aids viewers in analyzing how Watchmen migrates towards its utopian themes. The poem corresponds to the film’s cultural context of the Cold War in the Eighties as it is unlike a typical Petrarchan, Spenserian, or Shakespearean sonnet. First, this poem is in pentameter and not the normal iambic pentameter found in Shakespearean derived sonnets. The majority of sonnets contain five iambs in a line which begins with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. However this poem re...
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...on the poem and the film, literature and not mankind will endure the destructive power of history. This truly signifies the pervasive power of fallacy and divinity.
The poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, illuminates several key issues in the film Watchmen. Mankind’s struggle for power is fruitless since the passing of time will erode any accomplishment. The poem exposes the myth of immortality which is represented in the shattered statue of Ozymandias. The structure, form, and tone of the poem helps the viewer of Watchman understand that even heroes are mortals and only the passing of history can expose this truth. The achievements of civilization, as perceived by both Percy Shelley and the filmmakers of Watchmen, cannot be set in stone.
Works Cited
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.” PoemHunter.Com. Web. 18 March 2014.
Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” focuses on several characters throughout the novel making the idea of a main character moot. However, one character can be described as the most influential to the plot of the graphic novel. Rorschach can be seen as such due to the fact that he narrates a large portion of the novel, and his heroic code that he follows. Not only does he influence the plot by those two reasons, but also by uniting the characters after a long silence. The Comedian is the only character that almost perfectly fits as the character with the most influence on the plot of “Watchmen.” The death of his character allows for the plot to be set in motion. He has not only has he shaped every other character in the novel, but the symbol that represents his character can be found throughout the graphic novel. Although Rorschach can be interpreted as the most influential character of “Watchmen,” The Comedian influenced more aspects of the plot than any other character of the graphic novel.
...m must fall short of the original. And if his talent cannot be used to add to the glory of the classics, then it might as well be used to condemn the moderns. If all writing is ultimately a corruption of that which preceded it, as the narrator seems to believe, then it is better to write of something that is despised rather than revered.
"On the banks of the stream of time, not a monument that has been raised to a hero or nation, but tells a tale, and renews the hope of improvement."14
New Criticism attracts many readers to its methodologies by enticing them with clearly laid out steps to follow in order to criticize any work of literature. It dismisses the use of all outside sources, asserting that the only way to truly analyze a poem efficiently is to focus purely on the words in the poem. For this interpretation I followed all the steps necessary in order to properly analyze the poem. I came to a consensus on both the tension, and the resolving of it.
Nearly four centuries after the invention of the sonnet, Oscar Fay Adams was born. He stepped into his career at the brink of the American civil war, a time when typically cold Victorian era romances were set in stark contrast to the passions of Warhawks. It was in this era when Adams wrote his sonnet: “Indifference”, which explores the emotional turmoil and bitterness a man endures as he struggles to move on from a failed relationship . Adams utilizes the speaker's story in order to dramatize the plight of an individual trying and failing to reconcile holding on to the joy that passionate love brings with the intense pain it bestows in conjunction with this joy . Adams employs various poetic devices in order to present a new view of indifference,
Ozymandias is a selfish ruler with an excessive amount of pride and thought of himself as superior to others. However, even those who hold so much power and feel as though they are indestructible will one day fall. The theoretical term of symbolism portrays this message. We first observe symbolism when the author is describing the lifeless destruction of the antique land “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the dessert. Near them, on the sand, half sunk a shattered visage lies,” (2-3). From this readers can infer that the broken statue represents the deterioration of civilization and culture. After all, the statue is a piece of art that was created, and now it—and its creator—has been destroyed. This same statue that is broken into pieces and has been stranded in an empty desert, may
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous sonnet “Ozymandias” creates a very clear image in my mind of what type of man pharaoh Ozymandias was. I believe that pharaoh Ozymandias was an extremely unique and powerful leader, looking at lines 4-5 the speaker mentions the disintegrated statues facial expressions which the speaker noticed first even though the statue was shattered. The speaker could clearly see “..frown, and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command” which in my opinion suggests that the king looked down on other people, thought that he was better by curling up his lip. His “frown” indicates that he intimidated people to ensure that everybody was aware of the great king and his power. “Cold command” in line 5 suggests that Ozymandias was everything but a warm loving Pharaoh and he would demand anything he wanted no matter how cruel or vicious it was. In line 10 carved on the pedestal “My name is Ozymandias, King of kings”, proves to us how egotistical and arrogant pharaoh Ozymandias was. His “works” quoted in plural form demonstrates that the pharaoh had more than enough and...
The world is changing and evolving at an astounding rate. Within the last one hundred years, the Western community has seen advances in technology and medicine that has improved the lifestyles and longevity of almost every individual. Within the last two hundred years, we have seen two World Wars, and countless disputes over false borders created by colonialists, slavery, and every horrid form of human suffering imaginable! Human lifestyles and cultures are changing every minute. While our grandparents and ancestors were growing-up, do you think that they ever imagined the world we live in today? What is to come is almost inconceivable to us now. In this world, the only thing we can be sure of is that everything will change. With all of these transformations happening, it is a wonder that a great poet may write words over one hundred years ago, that are still relevant in today’s modern world. It is also remarkable that their written words can tell us more about our present, than they did about our past. Is it just an illusion that our world is evolving, or do these great poets have the power to see into the future? In this brief essay, I will investigate the immortal characteristics of poetry written between 1794 and 1919. And, I will show that these classical poems can actually hold more relevance today, than they did in the year they were written. Along the way, we will pay close attention to the style of the poetry, and the strength of words and symbols used to intensify the poets’ revelations.
"Ozymandias" written by Percy Shelley, represents the psychological forces of the id as well as the superego, as a charceter in a poem, and as a poetic work. In the poem we encounter a traveler. He brings a message from the desert. There is a statue that exists alone among the rocks and sand. Stamped on the pedestal of that statue are these words, "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
The Ozymandias that is described and talked about in the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley is actually based on an actual Egyptian pharaoh, Ramses the second. Ramses the second translates to Ozymandias in Greek. Ozymandias ruled Egypt during the thirteenth century B.C. Ozymandias, or Ramses the second, was known for his ambition and for the giant statues of himself that he ordered to be made. It is one of these statues that is the centerpiece of this poem.
This poem describes a story told you by a passing traveler of a ruined statue of a king, Ozymandias, seemingly in a desolate desert. On the statue in is inscribed, “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’/Nothing beside remain” (“Ozymandias” 10-12). Upon examination of the surrounding land, we realize that the once vast kingdom around the statue has been taken back by the desert, leaving the ironic message on the statue. This poem shows Shelley’s ideas of how all is temporary, especially mankind and our achievements. Showing romantic values, Shelley believed nature is much greater than man and no matter how big your kingdom, mather nature will always take back what was always
It is nature that destroys humankind when the sun disappears and the volcano erupts in “Darkness” and in “Ozymandias,” it is the sand and wind that causes the statue to fall. In Byron’s poem, humans lose the fight for their lives, and in Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias’s statue is powerless because it is lifeless, emphasizing the importance of the themes of life and death to the shared topic of destruction. Although they explore destruction using different language, they share the use of ideas about the destruction of civilization, and the fall of humankind because of nature, life and
In his poem “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley depicts an incongruous scene in which a colossal stone relic lays in ruins among a vast, empty landscape. Though on the surface, the piece has a simple meaning, the ironies and tensions hidden in the lyrics and meter are often overlooked (Martin 65). In his peculiar sonnet, Shelley uses the image of an ancient Egyptian sculpture to make a statement about the relationship between an artist, their subject, and the effects of time on both.
...the fleeting innate qualities of human beings and their world that they have constructed, giving way to the idea that mortals should live their lives as honorably as possible, so that they will be remembered by their future generations. The impermanence of the human form and its creations is heavily referred to as neither can survive throughout time, however, their words and deeds can live on through stories. The mere existence of this poem can attest to this idea.
To begin, the sound of this poem can be proven to strongly contribute an effect to the message of this piece. This poem contains a traditional meter. All of the lines in the poem except for lines nine and 15 are in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total of eight syllables. This is relevant in order for the force of the poem to operate dynamically. The poem is speaking in a tenor of veiled confessions. For so long, the narrator is finally speaking up, in honesty, and not holding back. Yet, though what has been hidden is ultimately coming out, there is still this mask, a façade that is being worn. In sequence, the last words in each of the lines, again, except for lines nine and 15, are all in rhythm, “lies, eyes, guile, smile, subtleties, over-wise, sighs, cries, arise, vile...