Ozymandias

Many have written about the political significance of Shelley's poem, Ozymandias, as the poem criticizes autocratic leaders for their arrogance and exposes their mortality. The frowning "shattered visage" in the sand symbolizes a fallen ruler who boasted omnipotence. In addition, Shelley's statement that the ruler's judgments "survive, stamped on these lifeless things" indicates the fact that though autocrats would continue to inflict misery on citizens, their legacy merely feeds into a lifeless cycle. All the accomplishments they may have made simply get "stamped" onto a fallen head in a desert.

Though I agree with these points, I sensed another element in the poem. I noticed that Shelley had decided to include the sculptor's perspective as well. Indeed, the sculpture would say more about its sculptor than about the man depicted. As Shelley stated, the sculptor "well [the king's] passions read," creating a frowning caricature that would please the ruler while giving future viewers something to roll their eyes, grimace, and eventually laugh at. A king who wanted to seem terrifying remains in history as pompous and, ultimately, ridiculous, and through this, the sculptor wins.

However, this victory is false. The poem dictates that the king's tyranny ultimately outlives both "the hand that mocked [the king], and the heart that fed [the sculptor's mockery]." Though the artist's statement long outlived the one Ozymandias wanted to make; the fallen statue indicates that both are lost in the vast desert that is history, a cynical and existential yet perhaps relieving point indicating that despite the today's tumult "the lone and level sands [will continue to] stretch far away. Time acts as an equalizer.

Like Tess, I also find the traveler's role interesting. I wonder if he was inserted so as to make the story seem more distant, far from England and British culture and far from the daily life that distracts us from these more existentialist ideas. A third person anecdote would accomplish this better than would, for example, a firsthand account or a simple story. However, as Egypt acted as an ancient center of civilization, knowledge and culture that had, like the Pharaoh, fallen, Shelley could be using the location to caution British society of the ruin that awaits it. Thus, the "colossal Wreck" acts as a grave for all following rulers; his face and the writing on his pedestal, an inscription, and the vast desert, an empty cemetery.