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- The speaker meets an unknown ‘traveller’ who has journeyed from a land far away and tells the speaker his story.
- On his travels he came across a ruined and broken statue in the desert. The statue was once a huge monument to Ozymandias (Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II) who was a tyrannical and harsh ruler.
- The traveller implies that Ozymandias has the statue made of himself and the sculptor made it deliberately look cold and sneering.
- The traveller tells the speaker that, as well as there being not much left of the statue, there is also now nothing left surrounding it.
- The statue now stands alone as the ‘sands stretch far away.
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- The poem opens in the first person as the speaker tells of a “traveller” he has met. The use of the adjective “antique” suggests the land he is visiting is rich with history.
- The “frown” and “wrinkled”, the “sneer of cold command” suggests that the leader’s proud, arrogant and stern face is still “stamped” on the broken stone, even though he and the sculptor are both long dead.
- The king’s proud boast, “Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!” has been ironically disproved.
- “Nothing beside remains”, suggests that Ozymandias’ works have crumbled, his civilisation is gone and has been turned to dust by the power of history and time.
- Final words – “The lone and level sands stretch far away,” suggests how the broken statue is a monument to man’s hubris. The poem is a statement about insignificance of human beings to the passage of time.
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- The poem is a sonnet, although it mixes the two main types of sonnet forms. This could show the broken nature of the statue and Ozymandias’ rule.
- It is written in iambic pentameter.
- The majority of the poem is through the voice of the ‘traveller’. As it has no stanzas it is like a long story being told by travellers.
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- Percy Bysshe Shelley was a romantic poet and wrote a lot about the power of nature.
- Shelley was considered to be a ‘radical’ and Ozymandias reflects this side of his character. He is writing about the dangers of thinking you are invincible, a timeless message.
- Ramesses (the Greeks called him Ozymandias) lived to be ninety-six years old, ruled as Pharoah for 66 years, had over 200 wives and concubines, ninety-six sons and sixty daughters, most of whom he outlived.
- So long was his reign that all of his subjects, when he died, had been born knowing Ramesses as pharaoh and there was widespread panic that the world would end with the death of their king.
- He had his name and accomplishments inscribed from one end of Egypt to the other and there is virtually no ancient site in Egypt which does not make mention of Ramesses the Great.
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