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Diction And Techniques In Ozymandias By Percy Bysshe Shelley

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Percy Bysshe Shelley was a Romantic poet, who like many of his time wrote about nature, time and criticised ruling classes. His poem Ozymandias was the embodiment of all these themes, and in the form of a sonnet Shelley tells the story of Ozymandias, a proud and cruel King. Shelley conveys how old and forgotten Ozymandias is through use of diction and rhyme. The use of 'antique' in the first line immediately generates a sense of desolation. Readers see that Ozymandias is no longer even remembered kindly and all that lives on of him are 'lifeless things', there is no one and nothing to even keep him alive in memory. Paired with the last rhyme of 'decay/ away' the sense of emptiness and finality is added onto masterfully. This meticulous

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