That Colossal Wreck: Percy Shelley’s Long Perspective on Empires
Toward the end of his life, Percy Shelley began to articulate his revolutionary views more plainly in his poetry. In 1818, while Shelley was living in Italy, and therefore away from the strict libel suits that were so prevalent in Great Britain, he wrote “Ozymandias” as an insult to tyrants. He uses the example of a colossal statue, intended to commemorate the great works of a king who boasts that he is, “king of kings,” to demonstrate that the tyrant’s claim to immortality is foolish (10) . True to form, Percy’s sonnet implicitly calls for anarchy by explicitly attacking the flaws of the establishment.
The first person speaker in “Ozymandias,” informs the reader that he has met a traveler who told him of a colossal statue that lays in ruins in the middle of a stark desert. The original sculpture must have been intimidating and impressive, with its “vast . . . legs . . . wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command” (1, 4) . More intimidating still is the announcement on the pedestal: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (10-11) . The traveler places emphasis on the rhetorical intention of the statue by describing the frowning, sneering, and cold visage, and making special note, “that its sculptor well those passions read/Which yet survive, stamped on the lifeless things” (6-7) . So the intention is to convey grandeur, power and intimidation, a purpose that is well achieved, according to the traveler. The statue is not presented, however, in its original grandeur and among its intended setting. We are shown the statue, “in the desert,” its frowning visage, “half sunk,” and, “shattered” (3-4) . The final emphasis and message of the statue are made clear by the poem’s final presentation of the surviving works of Ozymandias, as the pedestal demands: “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away” (12-14) . Thus Ozymandias is a forgotten name, except as associated with the barrenness that surrounds his monument. Ozymandias demands that we cower as we observe his mighty works, and we are therefore forced to define him by the desolation of his empire, an empire with no evidence of having ever existed except for in the cosmically ironic boast of its king.
This assertion of the transience of empires is made in many subtle ways. One is Shelley’s use of figurative language. He uses such language to affect the imagery of the setting in which Ozymandias’ statue and commemorative pedestal are located. The traveler is identified as coming from an “antique land” (1) . Shelley’s contemporary, Noah Webster, stated in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary that the word “antique” denotes something, “old; ancient; of genuine antiquity” (1382) . It is unlikely that Shelley intends this meaning, however. The contrast between immense amount of time between the erection of Ozymandias’ statue and the occasion of the speaker in this poem meeting the traveler, is essential to the rhetorical purpose of the poem. More likely the connotative meaning of the word, as defined again by Webster, was intended: “Odd; fantastic” (1382) . In one word, then Shelley presents us with a sense of foreignness and deep past. That emphasis on the long view of time provides much meaning to the poem. In this way Shelly utilizes his concrete diction to imply much more than the plain words of the poem express. The description of the statue is a good representation of this: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/Stand in the desert . . . . (sic) Near them, on the sand,/Half sunk, a shattered visage lies” (P. B. Shelley 2-4) . The facts are presented simply: there are two large, disembodied, stone legs in the middle of the desert. Implied by that simplicity is the original grandeur and impressiveness of the statue as it formerly stood. Implied also is the enormous amount of time that would have necessarily passed between the erection of the statue, and the event of this poem’s speaker encountering the traveler. Throughout the poem, then, figurative language is used to portray more than the simple words in the poem express.
The use of implication in this piece is even more apparent when the form of the poem is analyzed. True to the Romantic age, Shelley composed this poem as a Petrarchan sonnet. This medium allows a poet to explore and question much more effectively than the Elizabethan sonnet. The strict riming scheme and formal conclusion in couplet of the Elizabethan sonnet, requires that an author present a problem and finally solve it in a nutshell for the reader. The Romantics were not so much interested in answering questions as asking them, and therefore the longer sestet conclusion was preferable. The Petrarchan form of this poem serves its rhetorical purpose by abiding by the closed formula of exposing a problem in an introductory octave and explicating the problem in a concluding sestet. In this way Shelley was able to place emphasis in the poem on the works of Ozymandias, or the lack of them as evidenced by the setting of Ozymandias’ monument. In the octave of the poem Shelley forces the reader to observe the state of the statue as a ruin. The intended message of glory in the sculpture is contrasted by the actual message of the perishable nature of kings and kingdoms. In the sestet, we are presented with Ozymandias’ demand that we look on his works, admire them, and despair as we contrast them with our own. And what are the works to which the statue refers? “Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and level sands stretch far away” (638) .
That image of fallen greatness and the foolish boasts of kings would have been quite relevant to Shelley and his contemporaries. Shelley was born and raised during the height of the British Empire. His exposure to the dramatic gap between the aristocracy and the impoverished, caused great alarm. He became one of the great, and most radical, revolutionary thinkers of his age. He became an outspoken critic of every establishment of his age. From the letters of his wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, we learn, “Shelly loved the people and respected them as often more virtuous . . . than the great. He believed a clash between the two classes was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people’s side” (92) . This poem, then, can be seen as an answer to an implied question: Why do you fight against the empire? Or, perhaps the question: Why do you fight against The Church? These powers were indomitable in Shelley’s age. It seemed like a fight against gravity. Shelley uses the statue of Ozymandias to get his readers to think of time in a deeper way, in a way that requires one to consider the “antique” empires of old. Those whose legacy is ruin, bearing testimony to works we cannot know, works that have been conquered by time and the actually indomitable force of revolutionary change.
Works Cited
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Notes to the Complete Poetical Work of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Auckland: The Floating Press, 2010. Web. 5 November 2013.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Ozymandias." Backpack Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X J Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Fourth. New York: Pearson, 2012. Print.
Webster, Noah. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. Ed. George Merriam and Charles Merriam. Vintage Edition. Springfield: B&R Samizdat Express, 1845. Print.
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