The speaker recalls a traveller telling them about ruins in the desert - two stone legs standing without a body, and a massive crumbling stone head half sunk in the sand bearing a bitter expression. An inscription on the pedestal reads "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!", but nothing remains of the ruler's works except endless bare sands stretching as far as the eye can see.

1. OZYMANDIAS-P.B. SHELLEY
FA4 Group Activity

2. GROUP MEMBERS
ROLL NO. NAME
2 ANUJ GARG
11 KHYATISH DESAI
14 NAMAN AGARWAL
17 PANKAJ CHOUDHARY
31 VIDIT KEWALIYA

3. ABOUT THE POET

4. ABOUT THE POET
Born 4 August 1792
Field Place,
Horsham, Sussex,
England
Died 8 July 1822 (aged 29)
Lerici, Kingdom of
Sardinia(now Italy)
Occupation Poet, dramatist, essayist,
novelist
Literary Movement Romantic

5. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The son of a Rich Tory Squire, Percy Bysshe Shelley was educated at
Eton and then sent to Oxford.
Shelley came under the influence of revolutionary ideas of the English
philosopher, William Godwin, whose daughter, Mary Godwin he
ultimately married.
In 1818, Shelley left for Italy; he drowned in the Bay of Spezia in 1822

6. POEM

7. ABOUT THE POEM
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 Horace Smith, who wrote
another sonnet entitled "Ozymandias“.
Thought to be inspired by the arrival of the statue of “Ramses II” in
Britain.
A ‘classic’ poem which has been studied and dissected countless
times in the subject of English ever since its creation.

8. POEM
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.
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

9. SUMMARY
The speaker recalls having met a traveller from an ancient land
who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of
his native country. The traveller said that two vast legs of stone
stand without a body and near this, a massive crumbling and
broken stone-head lies, which is half sunk in the sand. The statue
has a bitter and cruel expression of ‘sneer and cold command’
and this indicates that the sculptor had understood the passions
of his subject really well. It was obvious that the statue was of a
man who sneered with contempt for those who were weaker than
himself, yet fed his people because of something in his heart.

10. SUMMARY
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.

11. THEME OF THE POEM
The Poem mainly consists of 4 different themes:-
Theme of Art and Culture
Theme of Pride
Theme of Man and the Natural World
Theme of Transience

12. THEME OF ART AND CULTURE
"Ozymandias" was inspired by a statue, and it's no
surprise that art is one of this poem's themes. The
traveler makes a point of telling us that the statue was
made by a really skilled sculptor, and the poem as a
whole explores the question of art's longevity. The
statue is in part a stand-in or substitute for all kinds
of art (painting, poetry, etc.), and the poem asks us to
think not just about sculpture, but about the fate of
other arts as well.

13. THEME OF PRIDE
In the inscription on the pedestal Ozymandias calls himself
the "king of kings" while also implying that his "works" –
works of art like the statue, pyramids, that sort of thing –
are the best around (10). Ozymandias thinks pretty highly
of himself and of what he's achieved, both politically and
artistically. The fact that he commissions this "colossal"
statue with "vast legs" points to his sense of pride, while
the statue's fragmentary state indicates the emptiness (at
least in the long term) of Ozymandias’s boast.

14. THEME OF MAN AND NATURAL
WORLD
"Ozymandias" describes a statue, and statues are
made from rocks and stones found in nature. While
the poem explores the way in which art necessarily
involves some kind of engagement with the natural
world, it also thinks about how nature might fight
back. The statue's head is half-buried in the sand,
after all, and we are left wondering what role the
erosive force of dust storms, wind, and rain played in
its destruction.

15. THEME OF TRANSIENCE
"Ozymandias" is obsessed with transience; the very fact that the
statue is a "colossal wreck" (13) says loudly and clearly that
some things just don't last forever. But the poem isn't just
about how really big statues eventually succumb to the ravages
of time; the statue is a symbol of Ozymandias's ambition, pride,
and absolute power, and thus the poem also implies that
kingdoms and political regimes will eventually crumble, leaving
no trace of their existence except, perhaps, pathetic statues
that no longer even have torsos.

16. UNDERSTANDING THE TITLE
"Ozymandias" is an ancient Greek name for Ramses II of Egypt. It is
actually a Greek version of the Egyptian phrase "User-maat-Re," one
of Ramses's Egyptian names. Why not just call the poem "User-maat-
Re," you might ask? Well, this is Shelley, who had studied ancient
Greek; it is therefore no surprise that he chooses to use the Greek
name "Ozymandias," rather than the Egyptian name.
Ramses II was one of Egypt's greatest pharaohs, and many of the most
famous tourist sites in Egypt, including the temple of Abu Simbel and
the Ramesseum in Thebes, were built or planned during his incredibly
long tenure (he lived until he was 90!). He is known not only for his
building program, but also for several ambitious foreign military
campaigns and for his diplomacy, especially with the Hittites, another
important ancient people.

17. SETTING OF THE POEM
This poem has several settings. It begins with a strange encounter between
the speaker and a traveler from an "antique land". We have no idea where this
rendezvous takes place, which is very weird. It could be in the speaker's
head, in a dream, on the street, or in the desert; it sort of resembles
something that might occur in a youth hostel or a tavern in London. The first
appearance of Aragorn in the Fellowship of the Ring might be a good
comparison.
Shortly after this initial meeting we are whisked away to the sands of Egypt,
or a barren desert that closely resembles it. And this desert isn't just barren;
it's really barren. Other than the legs, pedestal, and head of the statue,
there's only sand. No trace remains of the civilization or culture that spawned
the statue. It's a lot like something you'd see in Planet Earth: emptiness all
around, a few sand-storms here, and that's about it. It reminds us of movies
where people are stranded in the desert and eventually find a little oasis or
the occasional tree, except that here we find a partially destroyed statue

18. OZYMANDIAS TRIVIA
Napoleon tried to steal the statue that inspired "Ozymandias" and
left a hole in its right side
Shelley was part of a larger group of friends that frequently engaged
in sonnet-writing contests. The members included Leigh Hunt and
John Keats.
Shelley used the pseudonym (fake name) "Gilrastes" when he
published "Ozymandias" in the Examiner.
Shelley's body is buried in Rome but his heart is buried in England.
The graphic novel and movie Watchmen features a superhero named
Ozymandias.