Week 10 Post 2 - “Ozymandias”
The sonnet of Ozymandias says,
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away (791).
This sonnet is so ironic. There’s a statue of a once mighty king who believes future generations will look onto his statue with fear because of how mighty and strong this king is. Instead he and his old kingdom are in ruins and look pathetically destroyed. What Shelley wrote could apply to any kingdom or country. It especially reminds me of the United States. We act like we are a big power-horse of a country that is never defeated and is the king of democracy. We believe we are the most powerful nation in the world. Yet, someday we could become destroyed like Ozymandias, and our old mantras of how powerful we are will look ironic compared to our destruction.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ozymandias.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 10th ed., D, W. W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 790–791.