Rhetorical Devices In Ozymandias

In the case of Percy Shelley v. American Movie Classics (AMC), I endeavor to establish that the Breaking Bad Finale Trailer: Ozymandias does not infringe on copyright laws, but rather it is a remix, or transformative work, specifically identified as “redistribution”. As defined by the esteemed Professor D.W. Edwards, redistribution is the “sharing and updating an already circulating text” (47). By adding to a preexisting text, in this case Shelley’s Ozymandias, a new product is created, thereby reaching a new audience. Therefore, by exploring the rhetorical devices, I will establish that the Breaking Bad Finale Trailer: Ozymandias is a successful remix as it reaches a different audience than Shelley’s intended audience and also mobilizes collective

Shelley’s poem is constrained by the literary form it takes-a sonnet or a fourteen line poem. Although common in his time, due to the limitation of words, the poem’s pathos lies in the visuals being described and a direct diction which emphasizes the message. There is, arguably, an ekphrastic quality to the work as a statue, typically admired in museums, is described vividly alongside the ruinous surroundings. The grandeur of the mighty visage described, now corrupted by time, imparts a powerful image to the readers. Conversely, the trailer format adds onto the poem since visual and audio aids alter the pathos. What impacts the viewers is not the the mental image of the poem but rather the actor’s verbal emphasis on the inscription, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair”. The pathos lies in the actor’s impactful oration rather than the imagery from the poem. Also, in the same moment, dramatic music swells up before abruptly stopping, just as the great Ozymandias’ kingdom has fallen. The trailer even visually “updates” the kingdom for the modern tyrant the trailer is directed to. This tyrant’s kingdom includes houses, cars, and a North American desert; each location depicted is devoid of people. The lack of people, rather than explicitly fallen wreckage, contributes to a newly centered pathos. The actual images described in the poem are not rendered visually in the advertisement, but rather the visuals evoke the mood of the poem by demonstrating a location, once belonging to a tyrant, now detached from him. The poem’s imagery is not directly translated in the visual media. Only the hat, imbued with symbolic meaning for the character of Walter White, shown at the end, hints at the head of the destroyed