Describe the landscape around the statue of ozymandias?
Answers
In this poem, a traveler tells the speaker about the statue. He says that all that is left of Ozymandias are two "trunkless legs" and a "shattered visage." There are two legs with no body (no "trunk"), and beside the legs lies a broken and eroded face. The statue has faded over time as a result of erosion and maybe even defacement or destruction by some enemy.
The eroded face shows a frown, a "wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command." The king/pharaoh (Ozymandias, also known as Ramses II) had commissioned a sculptor to create this statue to serve as a monument to his (Ozymandias's) greatness. The sculptor did well to capture the arrogant ruler's condescending frown and his self-righteous sneer. Thus, the sculptor's hand "mocked" Ozymandias by presenting him as he really was: a condescending, proud, self-righteous ruler. The sculptor has mocked the ruler by sculpting a vain look on the face (visage). This is why Shelley writes that the sculptor read the ruler's passions well.
This ruler (Ozymandias) is long gone. All that remains is the sneering, cold (lifeless) statue, broken in an empty desert. The barren landscape surrounding the "wreck" of the statue further underscores the idea that power and domination are temporary, but the art that mocked him has survived. This is also a nod to how poetry can survive the test of time.
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“Ozymandias” is a famous sonnet which was written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822). It got published for the first time in the 11 January 1818 issue of The Examiner in London. Since it is a sonnet, it has only fourteen lines. But in this limited space, Shelley explores a number of contemporary and relevant issues. “Ozymandias” explores the repercussions happened to the tyrant kings who are the autocratic world leaders more generally. As we all know, nothing lasts forever; that means even the very worst political leaders, no matter how much they torture and inflict pain on others, all die at some point. But, Shelley doesn’t explicitly say “nothing lasts forever” and “there is always hope.” He pens down a sonnet in a subtle way to explain the truth.