Essay on Ozymandias

The poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley is about a traveler telling the speaker about a statue in the desert. This statue is half sunk in the sand and the traveler explains that the “sneer of cold command” (1720, 5) on the statue’s face indicates that the sculptor understood the passions of the statue’s subject. This man sneered at those who were not as powerful as him, but he fed his people because of something in his heart. The Traveler goes on to say that on the pedestal of the statue, it is written, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (1720,10-11) But when you look all around the statue for these “works” there is nothing but sand and a bare desert.

Ozymandias is a sonnet, a fourteen lined poem metered in iambic pentameter. It is not divided into stanzas or paragraphs. The rhyme scheme does not fit a usual Petrarchan pattern, but instead it seems to connect the first eight lines with the last six lines by gradually replacing old rhymes with new ones, giving it the form of: ABABACDCEDEFEF. It divides neatly into an octave and a sestet, with the octave devoted to the physical details.

"Ozymandias" has two voices. The first is the speaker, who tells the entire poem, including the reported speech from lines 2-14. The other is the traveler, reported to us by the speaker and he constitutes the bulk of the poem. The speaker tells us the traveler is from an "antique land,” which is a metaphor signifying not only the old age of his country, but also its worth. Antiques are valued mainly for their age and are almost always not modern. Likewise, the traveler is depicted as a well traveled, knowledgeable, and perhaps a wise, relic himself.

The Traveler’s entire speech is about a statue that he once saw in the middle of a desert. He tells us that the “trunk” of the statue is gone; leaving the reader to believe that it was either buried in the sand or decomposed into nothing by wind and time. The head of the statue lies in the sand at the feet of the legs and the expression on the face is still visible. The Traveler says that the lip is “wrinkled” (1720, 5) but he says this is not because of old age as one may think but it is the “sneer of cold command” (1720, 5). This leaves the reader with an impression that Ozymandias was a stern ruler and had no trouble giving orders. In this octave though it is suggested that the stone is “lifeless” (1720, 7) but on it is “stamped” (1720, 7) some “passions”(1720, 6). The reader, in this case probably imagines that these passions are greed, conceit, arrogance and other passions that are appropriate to a harsh, power-loving ruler. These same passions are said by the traveler to “survive” (1720, 7) the “hand that mocked them,” (1720, 8) which would be the sculptor, as well as the “heart that fed”(1720, 8) them, which is Ozymandias.

The poem is consistent to a single metaphor: the shattered, ruined statue in the desert wasteland. But another metaphor is “the heart that fed” (1720, 8). This expression seems to not make sense; Ozymandias’ heart “fed” (1720, 8) these passions? The heart seemed to be compared to a powerful figure and the passions seemed more like an animal to which the master throws some food. But I think the sense is more that Ozymandias’ heart fed on the passions. When you look at it like this, Ozymandias’ heart becomes a killer and the passions are its prey. It seems obvious then that the passions kept the heart alive and beating, the passions are sustenance to the heart. The passions don’t seem to be suggested to be bad, but Ozymandias’ feeding on these passions of greed, conceit and arrogance resulted in evil, the same evil we see on the statue’s face.

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