Moon on the Tides, Character and Voice

1. Poetry Across Time: Character and voice
Ozymandias
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 shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heard that fed;
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.
Key
Language: connotation, imagery, metaphor, simile
Structure and form: stanzas, type, patterns, contrast, juxtaposition
Poetic methods: alliteration, caesura, assonance, rhythm, rhyme
Character and voice: who is speaking and to whom? Tone of voice
Links: comparisons to other speakers, methods and themes
A mysterious
remoteness is set
up – an unnamed
‘I’. The traveller is
from an ‘antique
land’. We do not
know where the
two met.
Another name for Ramesses the Great,
Pharaoh if ancient Egypt. He exemplified
the ‘mighty fallen’
Rhyme scheme is
unusual and the use of
caesura and
enjambment seem to
break up pattern. This
doubtless reflects the
tension in the poem.
Sonnet written in iambic
pentameter
The single sentence
(3-11) nonetheless
injects a burst of
energy before the
final demise –
‘Nothing…’
Ozymandias
seems almost
inhuman, so
lacking in
warmth is he –
statue is
appropriate.
Concise and
abrupt to
reflect simple
finality.
Harsh, alliterative
sounds – final stubborn
statement?
Poet’s
mocking the
Vanity.
Compare with
Keats’
‘Grecian Urn’.
‘Cold
Pastoral’.
The ending confirms
the central theme of
the poem – the
transience of man.
Hand may refer to the
sculptor, mocking the
King’s ‘passions’ or
facial expression. The
‘hand’ could represent
the authority of
Ozymandias.
Interpretations of the poem:
 A symbolic representation of the arrogance of man and the behaviour
of those who feel that they are immortal. The poem also serves as a
reminder of how we remember those who rule through fear. The
breaking down of the statue can also be seen as a symbol of nature's
destruction of human vanity.