“Ozymandias,” was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1818. This specific poem is well known for being a very unconventional romantic poem, with their being no clear format or rhyming pattern within it. The name comes from the Greek name for the former pharaoh of Egypt, Ramesses II. The poem takes place in an Egyptian Desert, with the narrator introducing a traveler he met there. The remainder of the poem is the traveler speaking about the former empire of the land, and how even though the empire was once vast and vigorous, it ceased to exist many years ago. In “Ozymandias,” the poem uses the situational irony of Ozymandias’ statements in order to express how everything eventually comes to a conclusion, no matter how high the apex is. When the traveler first speaks, he is telling us exposition about the land, the statue ,the former empire, and the former king of the land. The traveler’s first immediate statement is, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/ Stand in the desert…” This tells us how we are in a desert, and the fact that the narrator said earlier he was in an, “antique land,” which along with the title is telling us one hundred percent that this poem is about the Egyptian Empire from thousands of years ago. The traveler states that when he first looked upon the statue he noticed how well crafted it …show more content…
The traveler affirms, “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/ Of that colossal Wreck.” Now the reader, while possibly surmising that the kingdom has fallen due to the description of the land earlier in the poem, knows for sure that the former glorious kingdom of Ozymandias is nonexistent anymore. The only piece left of the kingdom was the statue, and at this point it is apparent it is almost completely destroyed. The traveler then finally concludes with, “The lone and level sands stretch far away.” This supports the previous held conviction about the empire being