1. Literacy Focus- Summarising
Shelley wrote “Ozymandias” as part of a friendly and informal poetry competition in The topic was Egypt, inspired by some Egyptian fragments recently displayed at the British Museum in London. Some of these fragments were from the empire of Ramses II (ruled c. 1290–1224 B.C.). Ozymandias is the Greek name for Rameses II. Ramses II left monuments all over Egypt, including the temples of Amun, Karnak, and Luxor.
King Ramses the Second took the throne of Egypt in his early twenties (around 1279 BC) and ruled for 66 years until his death (1213 BC). He was the third ruler of the 19th Dynasty and ruled for an amazing 67 years, the second longest reign of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
After reigning for thirty years, Ramses II celebrated the Sed festival, in which the king was turned into a God, to be worshipped by his people.
Perhaps the best-known achievements of Ramses the Great are architectural. Ramses II's interest in architecture resulted in the building of more monuments than any of the other ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
Ramses the Great is thought to be the Pharaoh to whom Moses said, “Let my people go” in the Biblical story. He would not release his Hebrew slaves and was punished with plagues.
Ramses II became one of the famous Egyptian pharaohs known for his military strength. Much of his reign was occupied with taking back territories that were lost to Egypt during the rule of other ancient Egyptian pharaohs. His army was 100,000 men: enormous for that period in time.
The gods had a little help, in the form of pharaohs. Pharaohs were the kings of Ancient Egypt. In hieroglyphics, pharaoh means “great house” or “palace”, a word that was eventually used to describe the king himself. The ancient Egyptians saw their pharaoh as a god, more specifically as the god Horus. They thought that when the pharaoh died, a new Horus was born to rule on earth, thus achieving eternal life. In reality, the pharaohs headed the government, the army, set taxes, judged criminals and were high priests of all the temples. All this was in theory, of course. Appointed officials did most of the work, in his name.
1. Read through the text and summarise the information into 10 main points.
2. Explain how this contextual information might change the meaning of the poem.
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2. Context: The poem
Written by Shelley in 1817, it was inspired by the recent discovery of part of a large statue of the Egyptian Pharoah, Ramesses II. The Egyptian Pharaohs believed themselves to be gods in mortal form and that their legacy would last forever. The reference to the stone statue is likely to be a direct reference to the statues and sculptures, like the one which was unearthed that the ancient Egyptians made.
Image:

3. Ozymandias: A B C D cards
Which of these statements best fits the poem?
The poem is about:
The remains of a statue in the desert
A fallen dictator from long ago
The vanity of a long-forgotten ruler
How all things, however great, decay with time.
Challenge: find a quotation to support your idea.
Super challenge: explain how your quote best fits the poem
Most students will argue that all apply- test middle/higher ability students to either order them most-least or encourage them to select the most relevant/prominent idea and justify their choice.

4. Allegory: Think, Pair, Share
What is an allegory?
An allegory is a story with (count 'em) two levels of meaning. First, there's the surface of the story. You know, the characters and plot and all that obvious stuff. Then there's the symbolic level, or the deeper meaning.
The symbolic meaning of an allegory can be political or religious, or historical. Allegories are kind of like massive metaphors, but they usually come in narrative form—that is, they're told through stories.

5. Allegory
The statue in the poem, broken and falling apart in the desert with nobody to care is an allegory of Ozymandias and of every powerful man or woman, the idea that they will also drift away until they are just another grain of sand.

6. Ramses II, Pharaoh, Ozymandias

7. What happened to the statue?

8. Do we know something about this Egyptian king?

9. Why did Pharaoh need slaves?

10. Ramses was known for building a lot

11. Known for the many “works” he created of himself

12. And there are many more…

13. What Kind of a leader was Ramses the Great?
Distinguishing different perspectives:
From our perspective, he
was probably very charismatic.
took every possible advantage of
reign.
exercised total control.
was megalomaniac.
was ruthless in wars.
was cruel to his subjects and to strangers.

14. What kind of a leader was Ramses the Great?-Continuation
Distinguishing different perspectives:
In ancient times, he was probably considered
neither better nor worse than any other Egyptian king.
did what Egyptian pharaohs were supposed to do.

15. Conclusion We can’t really judge him by our norms.
We must judge him by norms and ideas of his culture, not ours!

16. On the other hand, a different culture warned against the use of statues and pictures for worship
The Second Commandment: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them…” Exodus:20:3 or Deuteronomy:5:7

17. Ozymandias/Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
A British Romantic poet.
Like other Romantic poets, he wrote about the return to nature, freedom, democracy and human rights.
Many of the poems often use ancient stories as sources of inspiration.
‘Ozymandias’ is his most famous poem.

18. The Poem: Ozymandias
The name: a combination of two Greek words: ozium= breath, air; mandate= to rule
A sonnet- little song (Italian)
Sonnets usually contain 14 lines.
the octave- the first 8 lines: the question/the problem
the sestet- answers the question/ resolves the problem

19. Sonnet Structure
Sonnets have 14 lines, each line having 10 syllables with 5 stressed syllables.
A sonnet is usually divided into 8 lines and 6 lines and expected to have a volta (a change in direction of some kind) after the 8th line.
It might be the first 8 lines pose a question that the last 6 lines answer or
perhaps the last 6 lines pose a counter argument to the first 8 lines.
Multiple Choice
Work in pairs to decide if there is a change of any kind around line 8/9 in this sonnet.
Challenge: Where does the poem keep to the sonnet form and where does it depart slightly from it?

20. Reading the poem-page 82
The Octave- the problem 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.

21. Let’s see again what the traveller saw

22. And the other part

23. Reading the poem- continuation
The Sestet- the resolution 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".

24. Ozymandias: Themes
Even the mightiest will fall: Ozymandias thought his works would last forever and would be above everyone else's. Not true. Nothing is left intact and his own statue is in ruins.
You can't beat time. Even a king dies and so will all the things he has built.
Pride comes before a fall. Ozymandias' boasts about his own greatness seem very hollow now.
The power of words. The only thing that does last is part of the statue and the powerful words on the inscription.

25. The Octave- the problem
By using the character of the traveller, Shelley is distancing himself from any direct criticism of those in power (government or monarchy)
By framing the narrative, using a narrator that hasn’t even seen the statue, it lessens the significance of Ozymandias.
Shelley uses the semantic field of deterioration (‘trunkless’, ‘half sunk’, ‘shattered’ and ‘wreck’) to underline the statue’s decay over time.
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.
The use of half-rhymes reflects the incomplete nature of the statue.
The use of assonance (‘wrinkled lip’) reinforces the sense of this leader’s contemptuous attitude towards others.
Alliteration serves to amplify his seemingly arrogant power.
Shelley juxtaposes what dies and what lives on: human traits such as tyranny and emotion live on; empires do not.
Ambiguous: this might imply that the sculptor was making fun of Ozymandias or that this ruler was scornful towards his people.

26. The Sestet- the resolution
By disrupting both the poem’s rhyme scheme and the use of iambic pentameter, Shelley could be reflecting how systems of power and control are eventually doomed to fail.
The proclamation is supremely arrogant and even mocks other royalty
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".
The caesura reinforces the temporary nature of human power.
By placing this short sentence next to Ozymandias’s bold statement, it emphasises the emptiness of his words and makes them seem ironic.
The alliteration and use of long vowel sounds in the final two lines underline the seemingly infinite and endless nature of time and Nature itself, compared to the short-lived regime of the Pharoah.

27. Form and structure Form:
The poem is a sonnet which can be read as an allegory for the pointlessness of self-regard and the vanity of loving one’s own image, especially by those in power.
By allowing the rhyme scheme to be disrupted beyond the volta (in line 9), Shelley could be illustrating how human power and its structures are ephemeral.
Structure:
the use of the framed narrative creates a distance between the reader and the subject (Ozymandias), suggesting his unimportance now.
The poem contrasts the broken and decayed nature of the statue with the vastness and more convincing power of the natural surroundings.