Ozymandias
Ozymandias
This sonnet is written to express to the speaker that possessions don't mean immortality - ironically, the king who seemed to think that his kingdom would remain under his statue's egotistical gaze forever teaches us this through his epitaph. "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" becomes good advice, though in an opposite meaning than the king intended, for it comes to mean that despite all the power and might one acquires in the course of one's life, material possessions will not last forever. In the end, the King's "works" are nothing, and the lines inscribed upon his statue are a sermon to those who read it. The tone of "Ozymandias" is one of lamentation, a sorrow that a statue proclaiming Ozymandias as the greatest king the world has ever known is now reduced to rubble; and not just the physical aspect but the glory of the king is also long forgotten.
In Shelley's "Ozymandias",there are two speakers; the first speaker introduced the poem for the first line and then the second speaker carries the poem to realization. It is ironic that the words inscribed on the pedestal "Look on my works. . . and despair!" reflect the evidence of the next line, "Nothing beside remains," that is, there is nothing left of the reign of the greatest king on earth.One immediate image is found in the second line, "trunkless legs.". One good comparison may be when the author equates the passions of the statue's frown, sneer, and wrinkled lip to the "lifeless things" remaining in the "desart." Another is when Shelley compares the "Works" of Ozymandias with "Nothing beside remains."
Ozymandias shows the reader that two things will mark the earth forever. First: the awesome power of mother nature is constant, everlasting and subject to no human works. Second: a mans actions are kept in the hearts of those he touches for eternity.
Nature's commanding presence in the poem is expressed only twice,
"The lone and level sands...
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