Analysis
"Ozymandias" recounts the narrative of a traveler who discovers the ruins of a once-magnificent monument in the desert. Through the traveler's description, readers witness the remnants of a colossal statue, shattered and half-buried in the sand. The opening lines introduce the traveler as someone from an ancient land, who narrates their tale of discovering a broken statue amid a desert. The expanse is suggested to be lifeless and long-forgotten, given the state of the ruin, and the fact that there’s little left of whatever once stood in the region. The vivid imagery in the sonnet allows the reader to picture the traveler’s experiences.
Between lines three and five, the traveler describes the statue they found. Broken and out of place, its face still bears boastful glances and an aura of superiority. Indicated by a “frown and wrinkled lip, and a sneer of cold command,” the authoritarian glances still survive. It is evident that the subject of the statue (Ozymandias/ Ramesses II of Egypt) was clearly in a position of great power and professed significant pride and vanity in his achievements.
Interestingly, despite being broken, the fact that the traveler is still able to glean Ozymandias’ expressions, reveals the mastery over sculpting its creator professed. The subsequent lines, “Tell that its sculptor well those passions read, Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,” describe the adoration for the long-lost sculptor’s skill who made even the inanimate stones come alive with the innately human expressions of a bloated ego and incorrigible vanity. Moreover, despite Ozymandias’ exploits, what survived of his empire could all be attributed to the sculptor’s astute sense of perfection, through which even his hubris still seems alive, regardless of the millennia that have passed.
While most of the traveler’s commentary on Ozymandias takes into account his pomposity and penchant for belittling his challengers, he also makes a small concession. By describing a monarch who often mocked his people, yet was magnanimous enough to sustain and feed them, at least one of the long-lost emperor’s redeeming qualities is also brought to the fore in the sonnet. This indicates an interesting dichotomy found in megalomaniacal leaders.
The subsequent portions describe an inscription left behind on the sculpture, which reads: “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” These lines are quite telling of Ozymandias’ character and how he regarded his rivals. Full of hubris and pride, he commands all those who come across the inscription to revel in his creations with awe and despair. Announcing his supremacy over them all, the inscription adds an additional layer to Ozymandias’ evidently inflated ego.
The closing lines of Shelley’s sonnet; however, transition to a tone of irony, given that Ozymandias is now history, and his empire is nowhere to be witnessed. In a decaying state of ruin, the last remnants of Ozymandias’ once-grand statue remain suspended in the desolation of the desert. The vast expanse of the Ozymandias’ imperium has been long buried in the forgotten depths of the past, and his achievements no longer have any corporeal existence. Much like the statue, which is now half broken, the glory of power and regal hubris are but inexistent.
Throughout the poem, Shelley traverses themes of transience, the futility of human vanity and hubris, the inescapable nature of time, and the transient character of empires. While Ozymandias tries to plant himself into immortality with his monuments and imperial power, barely anything has survived far into the future, with the only remnants of his stature being a half-shattered sculpture in the middle of a desert. Shelley draws upon the existential feelings brought about by the infinite expanse of time, and the indomitable power of the elemental, which razes to dust even the mightiest civilizations and their great leaders.
