ozymandias

Ozymandias

context.

Samantic field through out of:

• Deterioration
• Religion
• Power of nature

"i met a traveller an antique land who said.."

-The poem is in first person with the narrator retelling a story.

-The language is unadorned (plain), though the word ‘antique’ suggests that something interesting will emerge. The reader is therefore ‘hooked in’and waiting for the story to unravel.

-The word “Antique” could also reflect on Ozymandias' power, as it is old and forgotten.

-The aliteration “an antique” can refer to Ozymandias' neglect for human beings, as he does not realise they are the same as him, even though they’re both humans. Shelley hardly uses aliteration again in the poem to show how Ozymandias just simply ignores the manner of how he treats his people.

"Near them, on the sand half sunk a shattered visage lies."

-"shatted" has a doudle meaning it shows the  physical shate of the statue showing it to be old and broken over time but it also shows the social control ozymandias had on his kingdom, when he was king he had all the power but over time this has shatted to in to nothing.

- shattered show the theme of deterioration

-He is incomplete and only ‘half’ his face is shown, this is showing the two sides of human nature, to be a successful leader, he had to keep his personal side private and hidden.

-“shatter’d” is a sharp and strong verb, and the contraction adds to the force of the word. Notice also the sibilant ‘sh’s and ’s’s in 'sand’, ‘sunk’, and ‘shattered’, perhaps like wind whistling over sand dunes. The sibilants are used again in the last line, again with the same aural effect, that could symbolise the eeriness of passing time and degraded power.

-Shatter’d visage” presents a loss of identity. He tried to immortalise himself by building himself out of stone, but nature will always be more powerful. The only remaining memory of him has been ‘shatter’d’ and it is no longer clear who his is, what he did,

-Sand could also relate to an hourglass and how things no matter how great decay over time

-Sand could represent how the power slipped through his…