summary of ozymandias
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In "Ozymandias," Shelley describes the ruins of the once great tomb of Ramses II, also known as Ozymandias. This tomb was intended to memorialize Ramses' greatness, but instead paints a sad picture of death and decay in a barren desert.
The speaker meets a traveler who tells him about Ramses's tomb. The traveler's dialogue begins in line two and continues until the end of the fourteen-line sonnet.
Ozymandias clearly intended this tomb and its sphinx to immortalize him. An inscription on the tomb even reads: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Unfortunately, that's not what the traveler felt when he saw it.
The sight of these ruins leads the traveler to conclude that everyone dies and that one day everything will succumb to the desert and the dust.
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This is a sonnet (a poem of fourteen lines – the first eight form an octave and the next six form a sestet).
It is about a ruined statue which has become so with the passage of time and here, we can correlate it with Shakespeare’s sonnet ‘Not marble, nor the gilded monuments.
The title ‘Ozymandias’ is the throne name of Egyptian king Ramesses. The poem talks about his foolish desire to immortalize himself by erecting a statue.
The poet meets a person who has been to an ancient place in the deserts, Egypt. He tells the poet about the ruined statue of the great powerful king, Ozymandias. It had been destroyed with the passage of time.
There were only the two legs which stood on a platform and the upper part of the body was nowhere to be seen. The face of the statue lay buried in the sand. He praises the talent of the artist as the minutest expressions and wrinkles had been perfectly copied by him.
The engraving on the platform reflects the pride and arrogance of Ozymandias. As the statue is now destroyed, the engraving is a mockery at the pride and ego of the king.
Today, after the passage of so many centuries, finally there is no trace of the king’s accomplishment in the vast stretch of the desert.