Analysis and Meaning of the Poem "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias: a meeting with a stranger

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.

What is the main meaning of Ozymandias?

And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!‘
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

General considerations about the poem

This poem is an Italian sonnet made up of 14 lines. Lines have a regular length and they begin with capital letters. There is a regular punctuation and also a regular rhyme scheme: ABABACDCEDEFEF.

The poem refers to a distant space and time and also about thee people: the poet, the traveller and the pharaoh. There is an important use of first person.

There are two settings: the first is the place where the speaker meets the traveller (line 1 ) ; the second is the place where the statue of an Egyptian King (Ozymandias is a Greek name for the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II ) is situated.

There is a description of body: trunk, legs, visage, frown, lip, hand, heart.

The speaker says about a traveller that he met "from an antique land", who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of his country.

Main themes in the poem

As a matter of fact, the poem is about a traveller that is walking in the desert when he found out ruins of a crumbled statue of one of the most important pharaohs in Egypt.
It is described with vivid, clear and somehow cynic worlds which underline how his legs have no back and his face with a superb grimace is mostly buried in the sand.

Ramses II represent the pure tyranny and the exaggerated passions of a ruler but, by now, everything that belonged to him was remained in the past, had value only when he was alive.

In fact, if the power is used to affirm someone’s personality or aims it will be linked and expressed through the body, which is limited, mortal and unable to resit to the passage of time.
On the other hand, if power is used to create a solid state and to benefit the subjects, it will be spread widely and its reverberation will be infinitive. And so does the Art because the statue of the pharaoh is the only legacy left by him.

This poem also echoes Byron’s belief and mysticism: since the human being should be united with nature directly, without intermediator, the tyrannic power is absolutely not tolerated because it destroys this deep, desired connection.