OZYMANDIAS CLASS 10

 Summary

The narrator meets a traveller from an ancient land which is Egypt. The traveller tells that there is a huge crumbled statue in the desert. The only remaining parts of the statue are two massive legs and a half submerged face in the sand without the upper part of the body i.e., trunkless and made of stone. He further described that the frown and the sneer of cold command indicate that the sculptor understood well the emotions of the king, Ozymandias. The memory of those emotions survives and is stamped on the lifeless statue for the posterity to see. The traveller then tells the author that on the pedestal appear where he he seems to mocks and challenges the other mighty kings by telling them that he is the mightiest of all kings and that they should feel sad and desperate on looking at the grandeur of his kingdom. But the next line itself brings out the irony that nothing besides remains . There is only bare sand that stretches all through the desert. Power, wealth, pride, ego etc., nothing can survive the test of time. Secptre and crown must tumble down when death the leveller lays its hand.

Literary Devices

1. Metaphor - There is one extended metaphor used in the poem. The statue of Ozymandias metaphorically represents power, legacy, and command. It clarifies the meanings of the object and makes it clear that once the king was mighty and all-powerful.  It also shows that the sand has eroded the actual shape of the statue, representing the destructive power of time.

2. Personification - Shelley used personification, which means using human emotions for inanimate objects. He uses personification twice in the poem. The fifth line, “And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,” refers to the broken head of the statue. However, the lifeless statue of Ozymandias is referred to as a real person. The second example is in the sixth line of the poem where “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read” shows as if the statue is commanding the sculptor how to carve or express his emotions.

3. Imagery - is used to make the reader feel things through the five senses. The poet has used images involving a sense of sights, such as two vast and trunkless legs, a shattered face, wrinkled lip and desert. These images help readers visualize the status of the broken statue.

4. Alliteration - is the repetition of the same consonant sounds in the same lines of the poetry, such as the use of /c/ in “cold command”, the sound of /b/ in “boundless and bear” and the sound of /l/ in “lone and level.

5. Enjambment - it refers to lines that end without any punctuation marks. Shelley used enjambments in the second and sixth lines of the poem where it is stated, “Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone” and “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read”.

6. Assonance - is the repetition of the vowel sounds in the same line such as the sounds of /a/ in “stand and sand” and the sound of /e/ in “well and read.”

7. Irony - is a figure of speech used to present the opposite meanings of words. Ozymandias’s description presents him as a mighty, great, and fierce king, but in reality, there is nothing but a broken, lifeless statue.

8. Consonance -  is the repetition of consonant sounds such as /s/ in “Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown”.

POETIC DEVICE

1. SONNET - A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in which the same idea runs throughout the poem in both of its parts such as the first part, an octet (eight lines), and a sextet (six lines), the second part. “Ozymandias” also has the same two parts, to be considered as a sonnet.

2. RHYME SCHEME - The whole poem follows ABBAABBACDCDCD. The purpose of this rhyme scheme is to show the progress of time.