Wraith Sheppard
Honorable
I've made a similar post about a poem called "i wandered lonely as a cloud" and thx to the AE community I was able to finish the analysis. So, obviously this is another poem which I'm supposed to analyse, but as mentioned in the previous post; I have difficulty analysing topics that have more than one meaning.
Before coming here and asking for help I've made alot of googling but wasn't lucky this time. DU BIST MEINE LAST HOPE HALP HALP HALP
POET
POEM
TASKS
it is the first question Iam stuck at.
"What the words on the pedestal tell us about Ozymandias"
Before coming here and asking for help I've made alot of googling but wasn't lucky this time. DU BIST MEINE LAST HOPE HALP HALP HALP
POET
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822)
Of the major Romantic poets, Shelley is the one whose reputation has suffered the most. Today, he is mainly remembered for a handful of short poems even though he wrote several long ‘prophetic poems’ too. Shelley was an aristocrat, a traveller and a rebel against society. He also died young, aged only thirty. He was an atheist, anti-government, a believer in free love and a vegetarian.
Shelley was born into a wealthy family in the south of England. He was later expelled from Oxford University for his radical opinions. His private life was controversial. Although a humanitarian in his beliefs, he was impulsive and selfish in his personal life. While still married he fell in love with Mary Godwin (Mary Shelley) and they had an affair, which lasted for two years.
In 1816 while Shelley and Mary were away in Italy, his wife drowned herself in the lake in Hyde Park in London. Shelley and Mary married shortly afterwards.
Shelley died on July 8th, 1822, when his boat capsized in a storm. It was an ironic death as the sea and the storms were two favourite images in his poetry. His body was burnt on the beach, watched by lord Byron and his heart was given to Mary, who carried it with her for the rest of her life.
POEM
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 old 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
TASKS
it is the first question Iam stuck at.
"What the words on the pedestal tell us about Ozymandias"
Understanding the poem
What do the words on the pedestal tell us about Ozymandias?
Language
1. Which words or images in the poem convey the idea of…
a) power and greatness?
b) ruin and destruction?
Discussion
1. ‘”Shelley intended Ozymandias as an ironic comment on Man”. Do you think this is true?
2. Why do you think Shelley used a traveller to tell the story?