Shelley's "Ozymandias"
...es both the art of creativity and interpretation while referring to visual artifacts described in the poem (326). In this case, the “sculptural” part of Ozymandias is the first two parts of the sonnet, in which Shelley depicts the condition of the statue itself and the passions reflected through its sculpture. Labriola’s view also offers a unique interpretation of the phrase “the hand that mocked them [the passions], and the heart that fed” (8). To Labriola, “the heart that fed” the passions refer to Ramses and the sculptor, who together built a monument which would later be a “mocking”, derisive epitaph (333). This irony, which will be very clear by the last part of the sonnet, is caused by Ramses’ and the sculptor’s inability to understand that glory isn’t eternal. The third part of the sonnet (lines 9-11) consists of the often-quoted words of Ramses II: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (10-11). Here we should analyze the dual message of the word “despair”. To Ramses, the “despair” is caused by the fear of his opponents of attacking him after they “looked on his works [his glory]” (11). The “traveler from the antique land” (1), though, has seen the current tragic situation of Ramses’ works and therefore understands that glory isn’t immortal, so his interpretation of “despair” is different from Ramses’. He might assume that the “despair” is caused by the sole fact that glory never lasts long (that is, he is assuming that Ramses’ opponents should despair in trying to reach glory, for even the glory of a person as great and productive as Ramses has been shattered). The last part of the sonnet (lines 12-14) is the one which gives a tragic ending to Ozymandias. It tells us how what remain now are only broken pieces of stone lying on a vast, empty, uninhabited desert. Also, as mentioned earlier, this part very sharply presents the ironic fact of Ramses’ and the sculptor’s misunderstanding of the truth. They, unlike the traveler or the poem’s author, don’t understand that Ramses’ glory isn’t eternal. Freedman argues that Shelley makes this “understanding” grow deeper as time goes by to show that “knowledge is a matter of postponement and delayed recognition” (66). He then identifies the five “players” of the poem: Ozymandias, the sculptor, the “traveler from antique land”, the narrator of the poem (“Shelley”), and the readers of Shelley’s poem (67). Freedman suggests arranging these players in a “time box”, with Ramses (the source of the poem) at the center of the box and Shelley’s readers at the outermost part of that box; and we can see how as we move farther from the box (as time increases; as we encounter postponements), our knowledge and understanding (in this case, about Ramses’ glory) grow deeper and broader (68). But again, as mentioned earlier, Ozymandias is a poem about human weakness: it teaches us that there’s a limit to what humankind can attain. And as there’s a limit to glory, there’s also a limit to knowledge: Freedman notes how as time increases even more (as time goes “farther” by), the statue might also be destroyed and understanding thus becomes nonexistent; that is, as “nothing beside remains” in Shelley’s poem erodes to “nothing at all [remains]” (73). It is also interesting to note that Shelley’s Ozymandias is full of paradoxes: there are paradoxes between the “colossal wreck” (13) and the “lone and level sands” (14), between “shattered” (4) and “command” (5), between “survive” (7) and “lifeless” (7), and many others. The most important paradox, though, lies between the third and fourth part of the sonnet. It is the very contrast between Ramses’ arrogance of his works (9-11) and the destruction of those works (12-14) that gives this poem its ironic nature. This irony, of course, is due to Ramses’ misunderstanding of the truth of his glory. In fact, according to Fruman, paradoxes are in the heart of any literary work (71). He then asserts that “beauty ideally reveals itself in a balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities [i.e. paradoxes]” (87). This “beauty” is caused by those paradoxes, whic...