Question

Summary of the poem ozymandias the king of egypt

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

Ozymandias was the name by which Ramses II was known to the Greeks. He was a pharaoh famous for the number of architectural structures he erected. The speaker recalls that he had met a traveller “from an antique land,” who once came up with a story about the ruins of a statue from the desert of his native country. Then he elaborates the statue; two vast legs of stone stand without a body, and near them, a massive, crumbling stone head lies “half sunk” in the sand. The traveller elucidates the expression of the statue as well. He says that the grimace and “sneer of cold command” on the statue’s face indicate the emotions (or “passions”) of the statue’s subject is well understood by the sculptor. The memory of those emotions survives “stamped” on the lifeless statue, even though both the sculptor and his subject are both now dead. The pedestal of the statue says, “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” But around the decaying ruin of the statue, nothing remains; only the “lone and level sands,” which stretch out around it.

Answer 2

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.