Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in 1792, at the end of the eighteenth century, the son of a landowner, and went to Eton and Oxford, a normal progression for someone in that social position at that date. When reading Shelley it helps to remember that he was incredibly well-educated and so had a wide frame of literary reference that he often took for granted. He was someone who read avidly throughout his life. According to one of his earliest biographers, Shelley 'was always reading; at his meals a book lay by his side, on the table, open. Tea and toast were often neglected, his author seldom; his mutton and potatoes might grow cold; his interest in a work never cooled. He invariably sallied forth, book in hand, reading to himself, if he was alone; if he had a companion reading aloud. He took a volume to bed with him, and read as long as his candle lasted; he then slept--impatiently no doubt--until it was light and he recommenced reading at the early dawn (Hogg, Shelley, ii, 28).
Shelley has had the benefit of a classical education from his youth, meaning that he was familiar with the Greek and Latin authors considered suitable for study by young gentlemen. This classical knowledge was something that Shelley would have taken for granted, making as it did part of the ordinary knowledge of a young man of his age and class. Nowadays, we possibly need a little extra input to illuminate the poems more fully.
Shelley would have known this ode, and its influences. For instance, Shakespeare re-uses the trope of the monument in several of his sonnets. Sonnet 55 is perhaps the most famous example, and the closet imitation of Horace. In this poem he famously asserts Nor marble nor the gilded monuments /Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme but transforms Horace's idea of personal immortality so as to promise his lover immortality through his verse. The idea occurs in several other sonnets as well. For instance in sonnet 19, 'Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws', he states that 'my love shall in my verse ever live young' and in sonnet 60, 'Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore', while lamenting the power of time he concludes 'And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand, praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand'. Similarly in sonnet 63, he speaks of the 'black lines' that will outlast time, and in 65, sees the ink in which he writes as 'a miracle' which will preserve his love. The trope of the monument in verse which contrasts with the attempted permanence of monumental stone was therefore well established at the time Shelley wrote. He can hardly have considered the subject of a lasting monument--especially one that incorporated writing--without having this context in the back of his mind.
At the time when Shelley wrote the poem, discovery of Egyptian antiquities had led to a new interest in Egyptian archaeology. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone in 1799 in particular, and the understanding that its inscription was the key to understanding the language of hieroglyphs, meant that for the first time people had become able to understand hieroglyphic inscriptions, gaining a greater understanding of ancient Egyptian culture. As a result excavations in Egypt were the subject of great interest from the British public. The writing of 'Ozymandias' may have been inspired by the acquisition of fragments of a statue of Rameses II by the British Museum (the name Ozymandias is a Greek version of Rameses), and the consequent reflection on the ruin and decay of his empire.
Shelley actually wrote the poem as part of a competition with his friend Horace Smith. Both men wrote a sonnet on the subject of Rameses, and both were published in The Examiner within a few weeks of each other. As well as the statue that was in the news, the poem would have been based on their readings in Diodorus Siculus, who mentions Rameses in his his Bibliotheca Historica. Diodorus paraphrases the inscription on the pedestal of his statue 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.' (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, trans C H Oldfather, Loeb Classical library vol 303 I 47). If you're interested, you can read Horace Smith's version here. It makes an interesting comparison, and is helpful if you are ever wondering why Shelley is a great poet!
The sonnet takes a fairly standard form in that it has 14 lines of iambic pentameter. Its rhyme-scheme is unusual, however, and contributes to the conversational feel of the poem through the intertwining of lines. Most sonnets follow a fairly straightforward form which follows one of two types. The 'English' sonnet has three quatrains and a concluding couplet (e.g. ABAB CDCD EFEF GG). There may be some variation (e.g. ABBA) or repetition (ABAB ABAB) within this. The Italian Sonnet, on the other hand, tends to have an octet which rhymes with only two rhymes (e.g. ABBA ABBA) and a sestet with three (e.g. CDECDE). This emphasises the 'turn' of the traditional sonnet at line 8/9, whereas an English sonnet emphasises the final couplet as a 'summing up' or conclusion of the ideas in the poem. Ozymandias has a rhyme scheme as follows:
land A
stone B
sand A
frown B
command A
read C
things D
fed C
appear E
kings D
despair E
decay F
bear E
away F
You can immediately see how the disruption of the expected ABAB CDCD emphasises the enjambement between lines. The entwined effect of the rhyme scheme has the effect of knitting the argument of the poem together even more tightly, creating an almost claustrophobic feel to the argument. It also means that the sonnet has only six rhymes, rather than seven, adding to the tight-knit feel.
Shelley's poem opens with a frame narrative which distances the poet from the story that he is telling: 'I met a traveller from an antique land / Who said...' Not only is this much more engaging than Horace Smith's 'In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone', but it also creates a distance that enhances the mysteriousness of the situation presented in the next lines. The crisp 't' sounds 'met...traveller..antique' create a sense of authority and contrast powerfully with the sibilance that follows. All that follows is dependent upon the single verb 'said'. This is a single-ended frame narrative, however--we never find out how Shelley responds to what the traveller has said, and the poem remains open-ended. The use of 'antique' here, incidentally, simply means an old-fashioned land, a place where things are done differently. It may be closer to Eliot's usage in The Waste Land 'You ought be ashamed, I said, to look so antique (and her only thirty-one)' and is rather distant from our modern use.
The image of the 'trunkless' legs (that is, legs without a torso attached) is introduced suddenly, and is almost comical in its abruptness (though if you look at Horace Smith's poem the singular 'stands a gigantic leg' there is no competition)! There is no way into the story, no explanation as to why you are being told about the statue, it is as though this is the most important thing that the 'traveller' has seen and he simply wishes to take you in imagination to the scene. The contrast between the firmly rooted legs and the 'half-sunk' face emphasises the fall of the statue. The use of the word 'visage' for face here emphasises the 'mask' that the sculptor has carved. A visage is literally what you see; the etymology of the word comes from the Latin 'videre', suggesting a surface impression--the word also appears as 'visor' meaning mask or face covering, and the use of 'shattered' also depersonalises the face of the statue. It's interesting that although the visage is broken--in fact 'shattered' implies broken into small pieces--the features can still be clearly seen.
The soundscape of the poem (try going through it and highlighting all the 's' sounds) is truly remarkable, and the use of alliteration is striking. The sibilance that starts with 'said' is carried right through the rest of the poem, the hissing 's' of vast... trunkless... legs... stone... stand... desert... sand... sunk...shattered...visage emphasising key words such as 'passions', 'lifeless' and 'boundless'. As a result the overall impression of the poem is one which is reminiscent of the vast desert it describes, imitating the soft winds which bury the statue in sand.
The poet here perceives an irony--that the sculptor, oppressed by the tyrant whose picture he was commanded to carve, did his work so faithfully in representing the 'wrinkled brow, and sneer of cold command' that he in effect 'mocked' his master by reading his passions so accurately. The monument that has been created in other words tells the story of the tyrant's character, which 'fed' on command (and implicitly oppression). The projected magnificence of the statue has been undermined by the sculptor who portrays not a great king but a despot. This sense that rulers are inevitably oppressive aligns with Shelley's own political beliefs
The crowning irony is that the tyrant's boast about his power: 'look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!' is entirely hollow. The opposition between the 'frown' 'wrinkle', and 'sneer' and 'lifeless things' emphasises how his liveliness has been killed by time. He has sought immortality through material things, and they have all been destroyed. Time, which has preserved the words of his boast, has yet failed to preserve the city or the works about which the ruler spoke. Shelley creates a powerful statement from the bare words of Diodorus: placing 'My name' at the start of the boastful statement creates an ineffable feeling of confidence around the speaker, emphasising his primacy, so that 'king of kings' simply becomes a subordinate adjectival clause to gloss his name. Sinmilarly, Shelley creates a striking and simple imperative: 'look on my works, ye mighty and despair' rather than the rather involved command in the original, thus enacting the arrogance of Ozymandias through a final, futile command.
The final lines of the poem create a rather inventive adaptation of the typical sonnet ending. Rather than a turn at line 9, or a concluding couplet, Shelley stretches out the first part of the poem until line 11, with the hissing sibilance and exclamation of 'despair!' brutally contrasted with the bald 'nothing beside remains'. The short sentence contrasts with the extended enjambement throughout the rest of the poem and emphasises the 'colossal' scale of the reversal of fortune. The 'r' of 'remains' is picked up again with alliteration of 'round' and 'wreck' (reminding us that alliteration goes with sound and not with letters) and the assonance of the vowel-sounds in 'round' and 'boundless' also create an internal rhyme. Alliteration comes in again with 'boundless and bare' and 'lone and level' matched pairs of words emphasised by the conjunction in each case.
The conclusion of the poem, with its inverted commas, reminds us that this is a frame narrative, and we seem therefore to share in the speaker's amazement at what he has heard. No comment is there because no comment is necessary. The poet has made it clear that the wreck of the statue is its own statement.
Shelley's beliefs meant that a sight such as the ruined statue of Rameses II would have inspired him with the hope that tyranny was inevitably doomed to failure. 'Ozymandias', with its vivid picture of the desolate fate of the long-vanished pharaoh, is his own version of Horace's 'Exegi momentum'. In this case, however, what is being immortalised is not the poet's skill, or even the poet's beloved, but rather the poet's sure and certain sense that truth will outlast tyranny, and the artist's skill--represented in the poem through the sculptor--will ultimately tell the truth about oppression.
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