Ozymandias - poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley - explanation and reading

Video Description

An analysis and unusual reading of Shelley's well-known sonnet. (The analysis and explanation of its meaning is in the 'Show More' section of the video. ) The following is one possible interpretation. There will be others: ' I met a traveller from an antique land,' - a land with an long and ancient history. Ozymandias is usually taken to mean the pharaoh, Ramesses II, so the land must be Egypt - 'who said, 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert,' - who said, 'Two enormous stone legs, with no body [trunk] above them, stand in the desert,' - evidently, the remains of a huge stone statue.- Near them, on the sand, half-sunk, a shattered visage lies,' - Near them, partly buried in the sand, lies a broken face [visage] - 'Whose frown and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, tell' - The expressions on the statue's face tell - i.e. show - .. and here follows a list of three things. The last two can be interpreted in at least two different ways: 1/ 'that its sculptor well those passions read, which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,' - That its maker - the sculptor - was skillful in observing these details, which can still be seen in the stone face [" ... which yet [i.e. still] survive"] carved in the stone. 2/ ' the hand that mocked them' 'Mocked' can mean 'made,' as in 'to mock up.' Its more usual meaning is to laugh at or despise. So here, there are at least two possibilities: - The features show that the sculptor, in his handiwork in making the face, mocked, or despised Ozymandias. - Alternatively, you could see the meaning of 'mocked them' to be 'made them,' so 'the hand that mocked them' would mean 'the [sculptor's] hand that made them,] - 3/ 'and the heart that fed.' This is probably the most questionable part of the whole thing. Whose 'heart' and what did it 'feed'? Again, there are at least two possibilities: - The expressions on the statue's face reflects the sculptor's 'heart' [i.e. his 'artistic inspiration' or 'vision'] which fed [or guided] his hand in creating them. - Alternatively, this could refer to Ozymandias's heart [that is, his character] as having 'fed' [i.e. created] the features of the sneer, wrinkled lip and so on] ' And on the pedestal' - the base of the statue, on which the feet rest - 'these words appear,' 'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair' - 'I am so great that even kings look up to me as a king. Look around you,' [as you read this] 'and see my 'works' '- presumably a great and impressive city - 'and despair' - that you could ever compete with me! - Ozymandias evidently thought a lot of himself. 'Nothing beside remains.' - Besides [next to] the remnants of the statue there is absolutely nothing left of Ozymandias's great 'works.' - - Or, you could see 'beside' as meaning 'other than,' i.e. other than these stone fragments, there is nothing else left. - 'Round the decay of that colossal wreck,' - All around the ruins of that huge statue, - 'boundless and bare' - without end and without any other feature - 'The lone and level sands stretch, far away.' - The only thing there - the flat and deserted stretches of sand - run away into the distance, all around as far as can be seen. - Moral of the story: However great a person, organization or country thinks it is, time will reduce it to nothing, in the end. From ,"Wikepedia": "Ozymandias" is a sonnet written by the English romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792–1822. First published in the 11 January 1818 issue of 'The Examiner' in London. It was included the following year in Shelley's collection, 'Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems,' 1819 and in a posthumous compilation of his poems published in 1826. "Ozymandias" is regarded as one of Shelley's most famous works and is frequently anthologised. In antiquity, Ozymandias was an alternative name for the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II. Shelley began writing his poem in 1817, soon after the announcement of the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of Ramesses II from the thirteenth-century BC, and some scholars believe that Shelley was inspired by this. The 7 1/4 -ton fragment of the statue's head and torso had been removed in 1816 from the mortuary temple of Ramesses at Thebes by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Battista Belzoni. It was expected to arrive in London in 1818, but did not arrive until 1821. Shelley wrote the poem in friendly competition with his friend and fellow poet Horace Smith - 1779–1849 - who also wrote a sonnet on the same topic with the very same title. Smith's poem would be first published in 'The Examiner,' a few weeks after Shelley's sonnet. Both poems explore the fate of history and the ravages of time—that all prominent figures and the empires they build are impermanent and their legacies fated to decay and oblivion."