The King of Kings Time is one of the largest factors of the universe. Everything has a beginning, just as everything has an end. Over the many years our world has been around, humanity has tried it’s hardest to preserve information throughout history in whatever way they could. In this day and age, we have found many relics of the past, but there are also many relics that have been lost forever. One of these relics that was lost was the Kingdom of Ozymandias, or as he is better known as, Ramses II. In the short poem of Ozymandias, all that remains of his kingdom is a broken statue in the middle of the Egyptian desert. This sonnet is the perfect example of how plenty of things can’t survive the test of time. We have records of Ramses II and his rule in Egypt, but as far as physical proof of his kingdom, it has all vanished underneath the sand. For this paper, it will talk about Percy Bysshe Shelley himself, the author of Ozymandias, the deeper meanings behind the sonnet itself, going more in-depth on Ramses II’s rule of Egypt, and why Shelley wrote the tale of Ozymandias in the first place. Before we can even begin talking …show more content…
In 1822, Shelley was on his way back from Livorno to Lerici after going to discuss his new journal The Liberal with its co-writer, when it was reported that he drowned at sea. However, some people believe that he was murdered by someone else who didn’t like Shelley’s political views and wanted him out of the picture. Either way, Shelley was later cremated and his ashes were brought to the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. Shelley’s body may have turned to dust, and his gravestone will one day be reduced to rubble, just like Ozymandias’ statue, but Shelley’s works in life won’t be forgotten, and as long as that information is around, Shelley will continue to exist in the world and it will take time a lot longer to erase traces of people that humanity has
Shelley’s poem and depiction of Ozymandias could be a symbolic way of promoting his views against the monarchy, as he depicts Ozymandias as a tyrant with harsh descriptions such as “a sneer of cold command” and mocks him with the juxtaposition of “king of kings” and “colossal wreck”. However, instead of obviously putting forward his views and risking negative exposure, Shelley distances himself from the poem with intriguing use of multiple perspectives. The poem begins with “I met”, a first person introduction, but quickly switches to the traveller’s perspective as Shelley depicts what the traveller saw. In this way, he subtly puts across his socialist views without incriminating himself through symbolism and distancing himself from the narrative. In this way, the poem presents two powerful rulers, with Ozymandias symbolising King George.
“But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me.” (Shelley
The life of a dominant king who got lost in the things of the world, resulted in him losing focus on his destiny through power and time. It is a battle between man and the natural world he faced. Percy Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias, demonstrates that no matter the position one holds, in time, power can be arrogant and ruling, but cannot ultimately last for an eternity.
Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote this poem "Ozymandias" to express to us that possessions do not mean immortality. He used very strong imagery and irony to get his point across throughout the poem. In drawing these vivid and ironic pictures in our minds, Shelley was trying to explain that no one lives forever, and nor do their possessions. Shelley expresses this poem’s moral through a vivid and ironic picture. A shattered stone statue with only the legs and head remaining, standing in the desert, the face is proud and arrogant, "Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read"(lines, 4-6).
He describes the face of the statue as “Half sunk, a shattered visage lies” referring to the way the face of the statue, which by the nature of statues should be high in the air, is lying on the ground half buried. He goes on to describe the “frown,/ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command” enshrined in the facial features of the statue, and remarks on how the detail must have come from the sculptors familiarity of those expressions on the face of the man. Another detail Shelley contributed about the statue was the description of its size: “that Colossal wreck” refers to the enormity of the statue, which leads one to believe that Ramses was inflating his own ego, as well as providing yet another way the pharaoh alienated himself from the common people and tried to alienate himself from other rulers. Also interesting is Shelley’s use of the word “colossal” to describe the statue, as it refers to the Colossus of Rhodes that was build over the harbor leading into Rhodes as a tribute to the sun god Helios. Ramses’ attempt to elevate himself to the status of a god similar to Helios was unsuccessful, as the decay and destruction of the statue revealed how impermanent one man’s time on earth is in the grand scheme of the
The critique of Victor’s carelessness mirrors the new technologies that humanity tries to innovate upon society. Shelley reflects on the demise in the progression of humanity because this will only further remove us from our compassion and identity [p. 266- Mary Shelley bio]. Thus, science in Shelley’s novel offers no hope, only death for both mankind
In Amitav Ghosh's, "In an Antique Land", the author compares his life with that of a slave named Bomma. He reveals that both men live in antique lands, foreign to their culture and surrounded by very different people. Ghosh also relates the book to Percy Bysshe Shelly's poem Ozymandias, a piece on mankind's hubris and the insignificance of the individual. Ghosh effectively juxtaposes Bomma's life with his own as he tries to find himself and unlock the slaves past through the ancient papers of the Cairo Geniza. Through historical details and antidotes, the author proves how a place can be both antique and contemporary.
The Odyssey is one of the oldest well known stories to date, and it is believed to be written around 2000 years ago. Its age is not the most fascinating fact though, the epic poem is comprised of 12,000 lines of death-defying, adventurous tales that are separated into different episodes. The Character traits of the might Odysseus, the structure of The Odyssey, the diction within the epic poem will be explained in this essay.
Shelley dwells little on the small details of Ozymandias' face, but by Ozymandias' frown, wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, delivered in less than two lines, immediately carry to the reader a vision of a cold, callous, yet strong and determined leader who is commanding his people building his great vast statue hoping his power would be immortal. These concrete items are vital to the description, but are not as strong as what can not be seen. Shelley gives a nod to the talent of the sculptor, from whom Ozymandias received a mirror image of his personality, placed in stone because of his thinking to survive
An ironsmith, ship steward, crewman, cook, clerk, navigator, amateur scientist, and even a hairdresser. These are all jobs that Olaudah Equiano held during his lifetime. He has been called the "most influential African writer in both Africa, America and Britain before the Civil War", and was born in Essaka, Nigeria sometime during 1745 (O'Neale, 153). His family was part of the Ibo tribe, which was located in the North Ika Ibo region of Essaka. In his earliest years, Olaudah Equiano was trained in the art of war. His daily exercises included shooting and throwing javelins. As he states in his autobiography, two men and a woman, who came over the walls while the rest of the family was away, abducted Olaudah and his sister in
Some governors have threatened to go to court to pile pressure for the government to release the county funds that they have not yet received.
Eleven days after Mary Shelley's birth, her mother, the famed author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, succumbed to puerperal fever, leaving her [Mary Shelley's] father, William Godwin, bereft of his beloved companion. In her honor, Godwin puts together a loving tribute entitled Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the
In the poem Ozymandias, the speaker depicts a meeting with somebody who has set out to a spot where old societies existed. From the title it is realized that he is discussing Egypt. The explorer enlightened the speaker regarding an old, crude statue in the desert. The statue if broken. The firm looks firm and capable like a ruler. The stone worker benefited a vocation at communicating the ruler's identity. The ruler was a devilish individual, however he took great consideration of his kin. On the base close to the face, the explorer peruses a subtitle in which the ruler Ozymandias advises any individual who may happen to go by essentially, "look around and see how awesome I am!". There is no proof of his greatness in the territory of his mammoth broken statue. There were simply sand similarly as he can
Shelley’s version of “Ozymandias” pays particular attention to the details of what remains of Ramses’s statue. Shelley conveys to the reader that no matter how powerful a ruler may be, their influence will fade with time. The description of what Babylon looks like when the poem was written gives the reader a clear
To understand the poem "Ozymandias" we must first establish a background on who Ozymandias really is. Ozymandias, or Ramessess II, was an Egyptian pharaoh from 1292-1186 BCE. He was considered to be the King of all Kings, which will later be discussed. What Ozymandias was most famous for as a kind was winning the Battle of Kadesh and claiming land which he developed later to be a civilization. What Ozymandias first did to his new civilization was establish an infrastructure. He seemed incredibly conceited when he also wanted to create buildings based off of his own accomplishments. Throughout the article there were points where it kept seeming like Ozymandias wasn 't the "King of all Kings". How could he quite possibly be labeled as the greatest king who ever lived? He seemed to