Ozymandias-Themes
The Transience of Power
One of Shelley’s most famous works, “Ozymandias” describes the ruins of an
ancient king’s statue in a foreign desert. All that remains of the statue are two
“vast” stone legs standing upright and a head half-buried in sand, along with a
boastful inscription describing the ruler as the “king of kings” whose mighty
achievements invoke awe and despair in all who behold them. The inscription
stands in ironic contrast to the decrepit reality of the statue, however,
underscoring the ultimate transience of political power. The poem implicitly
critiques such power through its suggestion that both great rulers and their
kingdoms will fall to the sands of time.
In the poem, the speaker relates a story a traveler told him about the ruins of a
“colossal wreck” of a sculpture whose decaying physical state mirrors the
dissolution of its subject’s—Ozymandias’s—power. Only two upright legs, a face,
and a pedestal remain of Ozymandias’s original statue, and even these individual
parts of the statue are not in great shape: the face, for instance, is “shattered."
Clearly, time hasn’t been kind to this statue, whose pitiful state undercuts the
bold assertion of its inscription. The fact that even this “king of kings” lies
decaying in a distant desert suggests that no amount of power can withstand the
merciless and unceasing passage of time.
The speaker goes on to explain that time not only destroyed this statue, it also
essentially erased the entire kingdom the statue was built to overlook. The
speaker immediately follows the king’s declaration found on the pedestal of the
statue—“Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”—with the line “Nothing
beside remains.” Such a savage contradiction makes the king’s prideful dare
almost comically naïve.
Ozymandias had believed that while he himself would die, he would leave a
lasting and intimidating legacy through everything he built. Yet his words are
ultimately empty, as everything he built has crumbled. The people and places he
ruled over are gone, leaving only an abandoned desert whose “lone and level
sands” imply that there's not even a trace of the kingdom’s former glory to be
found. The pedestal’s claim that onlookers should despair at Ozymandias’s works
thus takes on a new and ironic meaning: one despairs not at Ozymandias’s
power, but at how powerless time and decay make everyone.
The speaker also uses the specific example of Ozymandias to make a broader
pronouncement about the ephemeral nature of power and, in turn, to implicitly
critique tyranny. The speaker evokes the image of a cruel leader; Ozymandias
wears a “frown” along with the “sneer of cold command." That such “passions”
are now recorded only on “lifeless things” (i.e., the statue) is a clear rebuke of
such a ruler, and suggests that the speaker believes such tyranny now only
exists on the face of a dead and crumbling piece of stone.
The poem's depiction of the destruction of Ozymandias and his tyranny isn’t
entirely fictional: Ozymandias is the Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh
Ramses II, who dramatically expanded Egypt’s empire and who had several
statues of himself built throughout Egypt. In fact, the Ancient Greek writer
Diodorus Siculus reported the following inscription on the base of one of
The Transience of Power
One of Shelley’s most famous works, “Ozymandias” describes the ruins of an
ancient king’s statue in a foreign desert. All that remains of the statue are two
“vast” stone legs standing upright and a head half-buried in sand, along with a
boastful inscription describing the ruler as the “king of kings” whose mighty
achievements invoke awe and despair in all who behold them. The inscription
stands in ironic contrast to the decrepit reality of the statue, however,
underscoring the ultimate transience of political power. The poem implicitly
critiques such power through its suggestion that both great rulers and their
kingdoms will fall to the sands of time.
In the poem, the speaker relates a story a traveler told him about the ruins of a
“colossal wreck” of a sculpture whose decaying physical state mirrors the
dissolution of its subject’s—Ozymandias’s—power. Only two upright legs, a face,
and a pedestal remain of Ozymandias’s original statue, and even these individual
parts of the statue are not in great shape: the face, for instance, is “shattered."
Clearly, time hasn’t been kind to this statue, whose pitiful state undercuts the
bold assertion of its inscription. The fact that even this “king of kings” lies
decaying in a distant desert suggests that no amount of power can withstand the
merciless and unceasing passage of time.
The speaker goes on to explain that time not only destroyed this statue, it also
essentially erased the entire kingdom the statue was built to overlook. The
speaker immediately follows the king’s declaration found on the pedestal of the
statue—“Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”—with the line “Nothing
beside remains.” Such a savage contradiction makes the king’s prideful dare
almost comically naïve.
Ozymandias had believed that while he himself would die, he would leave a
lasting and intimidating legacy through everything he built. Yet his words are
ultimately empty, as everything he built has crumbled. The people and places he
ruled over are gone, leaving only an abandoned desert whose “lone and level
sands” imply that there's not even a trace of the kingdom’s former glory to be
found. The pedestal’s claim that onlookers should despair at Ozymandias’s works
thus takes on a new and ironic meaning: one despairs not at Ozymandias’s
power, but at how powerless time and decay make everyone.
The speaker also uses the specific example of Ozymandias to make a broader
pronouncement about the ephemeral nature of power and, in turn, to implicitly
critique tyranny. The speaker evokes the image of a cruel leader; Ozymandias
wears a “frown” along with the “sneer of cold command." That such “passions”
are now recorded only on “lifeless things” (i.e., the statue) is a clear rebuke of
such a ruler, and suggests that the speaker believes such tyranny now only
exists on the face of a dead and crumbling piece of stone.
The poem's depiction of the destruction of Ozymandias and his tyranny isn’t
entirely fictional: Ozymandias is the Greek name for the Egyptian pharaoh
Ramses II, who dramatically expanded Egypt’s empire and who had several
statues of himself built throughout Egypt. In fact, the Ancient Greek writer
Diodorus Siculus reported the following inscription on the base of one of
