Percy Bysshe Shelley

As a 2nd generation Romantic, Shelley's works certainly have a dark, gloomy feel associated with them. This mood of hopelessness is much different from the uplifting, enjoyable moods associated with the Wordsworths. Of Shelley's works, I have chosen to focus on one of his most famous writings, Ozymandias, which was written in a sonnet contest for a new exhibit of a statue of Ramses II in the British museum.  This poem is unique in both form and content as it, in an atypical sonnet form, explores the ironic limitations of political power and immortality of art forms.

The sonnet begins with the speaker claiming, "I met a traveller from and antique land" (399). This clause sets the story to begin in an interesting way - by framing the poem such that the speaker hears this story from a "traveller" adds another level of disguise between the reader and Ozymandias. The reader hears of the statue from the speaker who heard of the statue from the traveller who actually saw the statue. This tactic further distances the reader from the statue, which is only a representation of Ozymandias and therefore, the reader is even further distanced from the ruler's power. So before the sonnet introduces this ruler, Shelley has positioned his readers to observe the ruler as "antique" and his power obsolete. 

The sonnet describes the statue as "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and a "half-sunk, shattered visage" lying in the middle of desolate wasteland.  Already, this image conveys that what was once the representation of a powerful, great king is now diminished to ruins in the middle of nowhere. Ozymandias's "half-sunk" face also seems to parallel his sinking legacy in time. 

Shelley then focuses on the statue's profound expression: "whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command" (399). In this situation, such a "visage" could only be thought of as passionate at the time, but arrogant in this state - demeanors that the sculptor read very well and personified. The sonnet then further describes the statue: "the hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed," which meant that Ozymandias was a ruler who had contempt for those weaker than him, but although he was cold and commanding, he also found it within his heart to properly care for his people.

On the pedestal of the statue, this phrase appears; "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair" (399). In this declaration, irony comes to exist because around this statue, nothing resides beyond the decay, only "lone and level sands stretch far away" (399). Therefore, the once-great ruler's boast becomes ironically disproved as his proclamation of greatness is itself, shattered and diminished amongst nothing but wasteland. His powerful statement is in turn interpreted to represent the profound insignificance of such political power over the course of time. All that remains is what is to be considered significant: what is left of the statue and the words written on it or a work of art and a group of words. Here Shelley clearly tries to convey that art and language will always outlast short-lived legacies of political power.