Wednesday, November 20, 2013

First year 1st semi : Ozymandias


This article is taken from the website.


Analysis and interpretation of Ozymandias

1817 draft by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Bodleian Library


Scansion
"Ozymandias" is a sonnet, written in iambic pentameter, but with an atypical rhyme scheme when compared to other English-language sonnets.

Themes
The central theme of "Ozymandias" is contrasting the inevitable decline of all leaders and of the empires they build with the lasting power of art, the only thing that has any permanence.
"Ozymandias" represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses' throne name, User-maat-re Setep-en-re. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue, given by Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica, as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone should like to know my grandeur and reach of stature, let him surpass any of my achievements."

Shelley's poem is sometimes said[by whom?] to have been inspired by the arrival in London in 1821 of a colossal statue of Ramesses II, acquired for the British Museum by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in 1816. However, the poem was written and published before the statue arrived in Britain. Nonetheless the statue's imminent arrival may have inspired the poem. The statue's repute in Western Europe preceded its actual arrival in Britain, and Napoleon had previously made an unsuccessful attempt to acquire it for France.

Among the earlier senses of the verb "to mock" is "to fashion an imitation of reality" (as in "a mock-up"), but by Shelley's day the current sense "to ridicule" (especially by mimicking) had come to the fore.

History of Ozymandias
• Written in 1817 during a writing contest against Horace Smith
• First published in 11/Jan/1818 in Leigh Hunt’sExaminer
• Thought to be inspired by the arrival of the statue of “younger Memnon” in Britain
• A ‘classic’ poem which has been studied and dissected countless times in the subject of English ever since its creation

Personal interpretation
• Central theme is man’s hubris (excessive pride)–A Greek term: also used as the noun for the cause of the antagonists down fall in Greek plays

• Through use of metaphor of rise, peak and fall of ozy, Shelley condenses all of civilization history

• Shows that all works of human kind, including social structures, will eventually become history.
Much like 1984, Shelley is alluring to the fact that the past doesn’t change the future or even the present, and although ozy’s short sighted pride seems funny, we must realize that all of the lessons are applicable today.

• Ozy refers to Ramses the Great, pharaoh of Egypt during the 19th dynasty.

• In line 7, ‘survive’ is a transitive verb with ‘hand’ and ‘heart’ as its objects, thus meaning that the passions evident in the sneering, arrogant ‘shattered visage’ have out lived both the sculptor and the pharaoh

•‘fed’ sounds like ‘the heart the consumed’ as opposed to ‘the heart that gave nourishment’. The pharaohs heart was fed by his passions.

• The lone level sands suggests the desolation the results from humans imposing themselves on the land

•‘nothing beside remains’ is both nothing as the space around the ruins but also puns on the ruins as remains and that nothing of those are left either

• The ‘Nothing beside’ the ruins emphasizes desolation and disconnects them not only in space, but in time: from the busy and important context which they once existed

• Irony on the fact the ozy says ‘look on my works, ye mighty, and despair’ and there is nothing left of the great kingdom we assume there once was

•‘Ozy’ comes from the Greek ‘ozium’ which means ‘air’ and ‘mandius’ comes from ‘mandate’ which means ‘to rule’ so Ozymandias is the ruler of air, or or the ruler of nothing
‘king of kings’ could represent nature itself because nature never disappears and it shows an immortality not shown by kings or kingdoms• the first 11 lines are one sentence talking about a harsh, demanding, egotistical ruler who culminates in his own arrogant words, so is about pride.

• But since the poem ends without ozy himself it’s not just pride but how pride and human accomplishments are meaningless against the non-ceasing march of time.

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