"Ozymandias"is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818 in the 11 January issue of The Examiner in London. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem. It was written in competition with his friend Horace Smith.

4.  Born: 4 August 1792
 Field Place, Horsham,
England
 Died: 8 July 1822 (aged
29) Viareggio, Grand
Duchy of Tuscany
 Occupation: Poet,
Dramatist, Essayist,
Novelist

5.  Written on December 1817
 published in 1818 in the January 11 issue of The
Examiner In London frequently
 anthologised and probably Shelley's most famous short
poem
 written in competition with his friend HoraceSmith, who
wrote another sonnetentitled “Ozymandias”

7.  The title of the poem informs the reader that the subject
is the 13th- century B.C. Egyptian King Ramses II,
whom the Greeks called “Ozymandias.”
 The speaker in the poem states that he met a traveler
who had been to “an antique land.”-Egypt
 The traveler told him that he had seen a vast but ruined
statue that lay broken and eroded in the desert ,where
only the legs remained standing .The face was sunk in
the sand, frowning and sneering.

8.  The traveler describes The great work of the
sculptor, who was able to capture the king’s
“passions” and give meaningful expression to
the stone, an otherwise “lifeless thing.”
 The “mocking hand” in line 8 is that of the
sculptor, who had the artistic ability to “mock”
(that is, both imitate and deride) the passions of
the king.
 The “heart” is first of all the king’s, which “fed”
the sculptor’s passions, and in turn the
sculptor’s, sympathetically recapturing the king’s
passions in the stone.

9.  The final five lines mock the inscription
hammered into the pedestal of the statue.
 The original inscription read “Iam Ozymandias,
King of Kings; if anyone wishes to know what I
am and where I lie, let him surpass me in some
of my exploits.”
 The idea was that he was too powerful for even
the common king to relate to him; even a mighty
king should despair at matching his power. That
principle may well remain valid, but it is under
cut by the plain fact that even an empire is a
human creation that will one day pass away.

10.  The statue and surrounding desert
constitute a metaphor for invented power
in the face of natural power. By Shelley’s
time, nothing remains but a shattered
bust, eroded “visage,” and “trunkless legs”
surrounded with “nothing” but “level
sands” that “stretch far away.” Shelley
thus points out human mortality and the
fate of artificial things.

11. • Vast- Big.
• Boundless- Infinite or
vast.
• Trunkless- You only have
legs and you have no
body.
• Visage- The face, usally
with reference to shape,
features, expression, etc.
• Colosal- Extraordinarily
great in size, extent, or
degree; gigantic; huge.

12. • Despair- Loss of hope; hopelessness.
• Mocked- To mimic, as in sport or derision.
• Pedestal- An architectural support of a column,
statue, vase, or the like.
• Sculptor- A person who practices the art of
sculpter.
• Sneer- To speak or write in a manner expressive
of derision or scorn.
• Remains- To be reserved or in store.
• Decay- To rot.
• Passions- A powerful emotion, such as love, joy,
hatred, or anger.

13. • Antique- Ancient.
• Command- To issue
an order or orders.
• Shattered- To cause
to break or burst
suddenly into pieces,
as with violent blow.
• Mighty- Of great size;
huge: a mighty oak.

14. The speaker describes a meeting with someone who has
traveled to a place where ancient civilizations once
existed. We know from the title that he’s talking about
Egypt. The traveler told the speaker a story about an old,
fragmented statue in the middle of the desert. The statue
is broken apart, but you can still make out the face of a
person. The face looks stern and powerful, like a ruler.
The sculptor did a good job at expressing the ruler’s
personality. The ruler was a wicked guy, but he took care
of his people.
On the pedestal near the face, the traveler reads an
inscription in which the ruler Ozymandias tells anyone
who might happen to pass by, basically, “Look around
and see how awesome I am!” But there is no other
evidence of his awesomeness in the vicinity of his giant,
broken statue. There is just a lot of sand, as far as the
eye can see. The traveler ends his story.

15. • Inevitability of
the declines of
leader and
empire.
• Human mortality
and fate of
artificial.