Ozymandias the Sculptor

Ozymandias, the 'King of Kings' as his pedestal proclaims, remains nothing but a collection of fractured stone sculptures disassembled amidst a backdrop of boundless sand. All that is left of this apparently powerful man is not his legacy, but rather a dramatic imprint representing the facade of the man. So what is that to say of Ozymandias? Was he so grand after all? It seems that the only legacy here that is left behind and still standing (well... not quite) is that of the sculptors. So it is not the life of Ozymandias that survives but the work of the nameless sculptor that persists.

Humans, since the inception of our existence, have tried to overcome the inexorable reality of mortality. However, even the most powerful people and civilizations cannot stand the test of time. So then, how is it that the seemingly powerless sculptor's work still survives while Ozymandias' work does not? It seems that those who are best at prolonging mortality are sometimes the most weak and powerless of people: artists. Artists are commonly given these attributes, whether romanticized or not, because they are usually subject to the power and suffering of a higher authority. This can be seen in the sculptor of Ozymandias. In lines 4-8 of Ozymandias, Shelley illustrates the harsh expressions of the visage of which the sculptor knew well. The sculptor mocked these cruel passions of the king in his work and the king's heart expressed them to the artist and his people. This exhibits the personality of Ozymandias and the relationship between the artist and the king. Despite this, the remains of the sculpture act as a vessel for the artist to live through for artists live on in their creations long after their own death. William Shakespeare in his sonnets describes this best. Mortality and the power of art tend to be frequently occurring and powerful themes for him and his contemporaries. In his famous love sonnet, Sonnet XVIII, he communicates this most explicitly when addressing the subject of his own poem in the ending couplet: 'So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.'

The title of this blog entry refers to the possible irony in lines 10-11 of the sonnet: '"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:/ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"' Although these are the words of King Ozymandias, they are done in the hand of the sculptor. The sculptor could very well have meant these words himself when making the pedestal, possibly knowing that his life and work would live longer than that of the king's himself.