NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Ozymandias

"Ozymandias" (IPA: /ɑziːˈmɑndiːɑs/ or /ɒziːˈmændiːəs/^{[citation needed]}) is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818. It is frequently anthologized and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem. It was written in competition with his friend Horace Smith, who wrote another sonnet entitled "Ozymandias" (for which see below). The term sonnet derives from the ProvenÃ§al word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning little song. ... Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 4, 1792 â€“ July 8, 1822; pronounced ) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is widely considered to be among the finest lyric poets of the English language. ... Year 1818 (MDCCCXVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... Poetry (ancient Greek: poieo = create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... Horace (born Horatio) Smith (December 31, 1779 - July 12 1849) was an English poet and novelist, perhaps best known for his participation in a sonnet-writing competition with Percy Bysshe Shelley. ...

In addition to the power of its themes and imagery, the poem is notable for its virtuosic diction. The rhyme scheme of the sonnet is unusual^[2] and creates a sinuous and interwoven effect (ABABACDCEDEFEF). Diction, in its original and primary meaning, is the term for a writer or speakers distinctive choices in vocabulary and style of expression. ...

Analysis

Written in December 1817 during a writing contest, and first published in Leigh Hunt's Examiner of January 11, 1818. Shelley points out that the poem was selected for the book by his "bookseller" (publisher) and not by himself. An artists rendering of James Henry Leigh Hunt James Henry Leigh Hunt (October 19, 1784 - August 28, 1859) was an English essayist and writer. ... This article is about publication entitled Examiner The Examiner The Examiner was a weekly paper founded by Leigh and John Hunt in 1808. ... is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1818 (MDCCCXVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a common year starting on Tuesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

The central theme of Ozymandias is mankind's hubris. In fourteen short lines, Shelley condenses the history of not only Ozymandias' rise, peak, and fall, but also that of an entire civilization. Without directly stating it, Shelley shows that all works of humankind - including power structures and governments - eventually must pass into history, no matter how permanent they may seem at the apex of their influence. Ozymandias' short-sighted pride seems amusing at first - until the reader realizes that the lessons conveyed are equally applicable today. All things must pass. For the supervillain, see Barry Hubris. ...

Despite its enduring popularity, some Shelley scholars have treated "Ozymandias" as one of the poet's lesser works. One major study, Harold Bloom's Shelley's Mythmaking (1959), doesn't mention it at all; but Bloom only intended to write about Shelley's longer poems and did not address many of his shorter works. Others (e.g. Ana-Maria Tupan, see ref.) treat it as marking a Late Romantic concern with the relationships between life, history, and art that is common to Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, and Byron. Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American professor and prominent literary and cultural critic. ...

Ozymandias was another name of Ramesses the Great, Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt. [2] 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 as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works."^[3] Shelley's poem is often said to have been inspired by the arrival in London of a colossal statue of Ramesses II, acquired for the British Museum by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in 1816.^[4] However, Rodenbeck^[5] points out that the poem was written and published before the statue arrived in Britain, and thus that Shelley could not have seen it. However, its repute in Western Europe preceded its actual arrival in Britain (Napoleon had previously made an unsuccessful attempt to acquire it for France, for example), and thus it may have been its repute or news of its imminent arrival rather than seeing the statue itself which provided the inspiration. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1200x1600, 640 KB) Description: The British Museum, Room 4 - Colossal bust of Ramesses II, the Younger Memnon From the Ramesseum, Thebes, Egypt 19th Dynasty, about 1250 BC One of the largest pieces of Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum Weighing 7. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1200x1600, 640 KB) Description: The British Museum, Room 4 - Colossal bust of Ramesses II, the Younger Memnon From the Ramesseum, Thebes, Egypt 19th Dynasty, about 1250 BC One of the largest pieces of Egyptian sculpture in the British Museum Weighing 7. ... The Younger Memnon statue is one of two colossal granite heads from the Ancient Egyptian mortuary temple called the Ramesseum at Thebes, depicting the pharaoh Ramesses II wearing the nemes head-dress with a cobra diadem on top. ... Usermaatre-setepenre TheJustice of Re is Powerful, Chosen of Re Nomen Ramesses (meryamun) Born of Re, (Beloved of Amun) Horus name [1] Kanakht Merymaa Golden Horus [1] Userrenput-aanehktu[2] Consort(s) Henutmire, Isetnofret, Nefertari Maathorneferure Issue Bintanath, Khaemweset, Merneptah, Amun-her-khepsef, Meritamen see also: List of children of... For other uses, see Pharaoh (disambiguation). ... Known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Nineteenth Dynasty. ... A regnal name, or reign name, is a formal name used by some popes and monarchs during their reigns. ... Diodorus Siculus (c. ... King of Kings is a lofty title that has been used by several monarchies (usually empires in the informal sense of great powers) throughout history, and in many cases the literal title meaning King of Kings, i. ... London museum | name = British Museum | image = British Museum from NE 2. ... Giovanni Battista Belzoni (1778 - December 3, 1823) was an Italian explorer of Egyptian antiquities. ...

In line 7, the word "survive" is a transitive verb, with "hand" and "heart" as its direct objects. These lines therefore mean that the passions evident in the arrogant and sneering "shatter'd visage" have survived both the sculptor and the pharaoh. The alternative reading makes "fed" intransitive, the sense then being "the heart that consumed" rather than "the heart that gave nourishment." Thus the pharaoh's insatiable heart "fed on" (was fed by) his passions, a common trope of the Petrarchan sonnet and its progeny. A transitive verb is a verb that requires both a subject and one or more objects. ... The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ...

Among the earlier senses of the verb "to mock" is "to fashion an imitation of reality" (as in "a mock-up");^[6] but by Shelley's day the current sense "to ridicule" (especially by mimicking) had come to the fore.

In his sonnet Shelley celebrates the anonymous artist and his achievement, and our poet himself survives the ruins of the oppressor by making a tight, compact sonnet out of a second-hand story about ruins in a desert. The lone and level sands stretching far away suggest the desolation that results from the impulse to impose oneself on the landscape. When Shelley says "nothing beside remains," he suggests the nothingness of space around the ruins and of the ruins themselves, and he puns on the ruins as "remains." That there is nothing beside the ruins emphasises their loneliness and desolation, disconnected not only in space – from other physical things, but also in time – from the busy and important context in which they must have once existed, as an interconnected part of an ancient city.

This sonnet is often incorrectly quoted or reproduced.^{[citation needed]} The most common misquotation – "Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" – replaces the correct "on" with "upon", thus turning the regular decasyllabic (iambic pentameter) verse into an 11-syllable verse, which is a license that is generally avoided unless there is good reason to indulge in it. Decasyllable verse or meter (in Italian decasillabo) is a kind of verse used mostly in epic poetry of the Southern Slavs (for example Serbian epic poetry sung to the gusle instrument). ... Insert non-formatted text hereIambic pentameter is a meter in poetry. ...

Smith's poem

Percy Shelley apparently wrote this sonnet in competition with his friend Horace Smith, as Smith published a sonnet a month after Shelley's in the same magazine. It takes the same subject, tells the same story, and makes the same moral point. It was originally published under the same title as Shelley's verse; but in later collections Smith retitled it "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below".^[8] Horace (born Horatio) Smith (December 31, 1779 - July 12 1849) was an English poet and novelist, perhaps best known for his participation in a sonnet-writing competition with Percy Bysshe Shelley. ...

Smith's verse lacks the enduring appeal of Shelley's, and is not nearly so fondly remembered or so often quoted. Shelley's Ozymandias contains an accessible mystery, and a "moral" that can be pleasantly analysed in a school-room. It is a fairly archetypal example of what constitutes a classic poem in terms of the modern English literature syllabus. On the other hand, Smith's verse may appear excessively didactic or even heavy-handed, to some readers.

Contents

Analysis

Smith's poem

See also

Further reading

Notes

External links

Contents

Analysis GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Smith's poem

See also

Further reading

Notes

External links

Analysis