Ozymandias vs The Charge of the Light Brigade

"Vast and trunkless"

• destructive power of history
• king rendered less commanding through image of destroyed statue
• Shelley showing abhorrence of monarchical power? condemning king/government?
• "trunkless"- incomplete
• "vast" - sense of size, scale suggests power of king
• ideas of power, egotism, narcissism

"Forward, the Light Brigade"

• inevitability of death
• imperative - control
• no identity/freewill
• soldiers have no voice
• "forward" - no choice, corruption of power/authority

LINKS: imperatives, corruption of power, heirachy

"trunkless" "colossal wreck"

• statue = metaphor for kings power/pride/hubris
• natural power of time/nature is more powerful than invented power
• insignificance of man over time
• ideas od narcissism and political tyranny
• instability of political power, civilisations being destroyed
• irony - even the most powerful humans cannot control effect of time

"into the jaws of Death/into the mouth of Hell"

• personification of death
• inescapability of death/conflict
• animalistic imagery - enemy viewed as animals
• "D","H" - importance of words in the quotation
• monosyllabic - defintite death, dactylic
• savagery/bitterness

LINKS: imagery of death and destruction

"colossal wreck" "shatter'd visage lies"

• "colossal" - scale = power nd arrogance of king (he wanted in created for him) egocentricity
• idea that civilisation is gone
• "shatter'd" - destructive, onomatopoeia
• ephmeral nature of political power
• only words remain
• words and language outline legacy of king/power

"flash'd all their sabres bare.." "sabring the gunners...charging an army...plunged"

• "flashed" - speed of war, war in media, EWO, over quickly
• "sabring"/"charging" - present participle
• "plunged" - shift in tenses, death

LINKS: onomatopoeia, idea of death/destruction, condemnation of power

"my name is Ozymandias"

• "my" - pp = arrogance, power, self obsession
• EWO
• only words remain - rest of his power has diminished

"Theirs was not to reason why...Theirs...Theirs"

• "theirs" - pp, separates soldiers from authority
• loss of identitiy, labelled, dehumanising
• entrapment - no choice
• idea of camaraderie
• repetition of "theirs" - anaphora, list of rules? irony - no free will

LINKS: personal pronoun, idea of corruption of power

OZY

• one stanza
• sonnet - (usually romantic) self love
• leads to decay and thwarted ambition
• long 2nd sentence - epic feel to poem
• ongoing power and control that king possesed

COTLB

• dactylic rhythm = fall of soldiers/sound of horses
• reg. verses - organisation of army, order
• reality/narrative of battle
• legacy

LINKS: strong form/structure, emjambment, caesura