1. 1818

2. Ozymandias
Learning Objective: an introduction to how the vocabulary of power is represented in the poem Ozymandias.

3. What is the purpose of statues?

4. What do these statues suggest?
Might, Power

5. What do these words mean?
Antique
Visage
Sneer
Pedestal
Decay
Colossal
Boundless
Demise

6. Highlight the words in poem

7. What’s it all about? Ozymandias is a sonnet.
In it we are told about a broken statue (with it’s head/face lying half-buried in the sand nearby) which represented a powerful man who was once in control of a vast area of land.
The shattered statue shows the demise of the king.
The poem shows both strength and fragility.
It also shows that Time holds the ultimate power. The one thing that cannot be stopped.

8. Listen to the poem

9. Power
Can you identify any language techniques or powerful vocabulary in Shelley’s poem?

10. 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.”

11. 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.”
Aggressive Verbs:
paint a harsh picture of might and power.
Oxymoron:
exaggerating the greatness of empire and comparing it with the vulnerability of the ravages of time
Imperative Verbs:
trying to cling on to power even after his death (bossy verbs).
Alliteration:
highlights the insignificance of his power now.

12. Last thoughts…
“How the mighty have fallen!” “The higher you climb, the harder you fall.”