Ozymandias

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about Shelley's poem. For other uses, see Ozymandias (disambiguation).

"Ozymandias" (IPA: [ɑ.ziːˈmɑn.diːˌɑs] or [ɒ.ziːˈmæn.diːˌəs]) is a famous sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem.

It deals with a number of great themes, such as the arrogance and transience of power, the permanence of real art and emotional truth, and the crucial but contradictory relationship between artist and subject. It explores these themes with striking imagery, using a setting—Egypt and the Sahara desert—that was exotic for European audiences in the early 19th century. The poem's sense of distance is further enhanced by its second-hand narration; the commentator is relating to us the words of an unnamed "traveller from an antique land". (There is an echo of the classical "Viator!" motif here - many epitaphs in antiquity addressed a passing traveller.) However, the exoticism is balanced by the familiar - the tyranny was recognizable to Shelley's contemporaries as a reference to Napoléon Bonaparte, whose huge impact on Europe ("mighty works") had been brought to a halt at Waterloo in 1815 just three years before the poem was written. And travellers and their tales were a staple ingredient of English and European social intercourse. Egypt was in contemporary focus because of the war fought there at the turn of the century and the effect its ancient artifacts and writing had had on social (fashion, furniture) and intellectual (art, literature) imagination.

In addition to the power of its themes and imagery, the poem is notable for its virtuoso diction. The rhyme scheme of the sonnet is unusual and creates a sinuous and interwoven effect (ABABACDC EDEFEF).

Contents 1 Analysis 2 Smith's poem 3 In pop culture 3.1 Television and film 3.2 Literature 3.3 Music 3.4 Comics 3.5 Games 4 The poem and archaeology 5 See also 6 Further reading 7 Notes 8 External links

[edit] Analysis

"Ozymandias" was written in December 1817 during a writing contest, and first published in Leigh Hunt's Examiner of January 11, 1818. It was republished in Shelley's Rosalind and Helen volume of 1819, and in the "Advertisement" prefacing the volume, Shelley describes it as one of "a few scattered poems I left in England" which were used to pad out the book. Shelley also points out that the poem was selected for the book by his "bookseller" (publisher) and not by himself.

Despite its enduring popularity, many Shelley scholars have seen it as a piece of trivia, and few studies of Shelley's career make much of it. Harold Bloom's Shelley's Mythmaking (1959), the major Shelley study of the 20th century and the book that restored the importance of Shelley's reputation, does not mention it at all.

The name Ozymandias (or Osymandias) is generally believed to refer to Ramesses the Great (i.e., Ramesses II), Pharaoh of the Nineteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt. Ozymandias represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses's throne name, User-maat-re Setep-en-re. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue, given by Diodorus Siculus as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works."^[1]

In line 7, the word "survive" is a transitive verb, with "hand" and "heart" as its direct objects. Thus, the lines mean that those passions (arrogance and sneer) have survived (outlived) both the sculptor (whose hand mocked those passions by stamping them so well on the statue) and the pharaoh (whose heart fed those passions in the first place).

The verb "mock'd" originally meant "to create/fashion an imitation of reality" (as in "a mockup") before meaning "to ridicule" (especially by mimicking). In Shelley's day, the latter meaning was predominant (as seen in the works of William Shakespeare or the King James Version of the Bible), but in the specific context of "the hand that mock'd them", we can read both "the hand that crafted them" and "the hand that ridiculed them".

The impact of the sonnet's message comes from its double irony. The tyrant declares, "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" Yet nothing remains of Ozymandias' works but the shattered fragments of his statue. So "the mighty" should despair — not, as Ozymandias intended, because they can never hope to equal his achievements, but because they will share his fate of inevitable oblivion in the sands of time. A second irony lies in the "survival" of the tyrant's character in the fragments being due not to his own powers but to those of the artist.

This poem is often incorrectly quoted or reproduced. The most common misquote—"Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!"—replaces the correct "on" with "upon", thus turning the regular decasyllabic (iambic pentameter) verse into an 11-syllable verse.

[edit] Smith's poem

Shelley apparently wrote this sonnet in competition with his friend Horace Smith, as Smith published a sonnet a month after Shelley's, in the same magazine, which takes the same subject, tells the same story, and makes the same moral point. It was originally published under the same title as Shelley's verse; in later collections, however, Smith retitled it "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below"^[2].

Smith's verse lacked the enduring appeal of Shelley's and is not as fondly-remembered or oft-quoted. Shelley's Ozymandias contains an accessible mystery and "moral" that can be pleasantly analysed in a school-room and is a fairly archetyptal example of what constitutes a classic poem in terms of the modern English Literature syllabus. On the other hand, Smith's verse may appear overly didactic or even heavy-handed to some readers.

[edit] In pop culture

Shelley's poem and the character of Ozymandias are frequently referenced in popular culture.

[edit] Television and film

The poem and author are depicted (however inaccurately) in episode 41 of Monty Python's Flying Circus, in the sketch titled "Ant Poetry Reading." Shelley was performed by Terry Gilliam.

Ozymandias was also the name of comedian Harry Worth's cabin cruiser.

In Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories" he suffers from "Ozymandias Melancholia" -- he realizes his art will not save him and in the end means nothing.

In the South Park episode "Hell on Earth 2006", Satan's right hand man, who is in charge of getting the cake for Satan's big Halloween party, is named Ozymandias.

In the Linda Hamilton TV Series, Beauty and the Beast, an episode called Ozymandias featured a Donald Trump-style real estate tycoon whose empire had begun to crumble by the end of the episode.

In Frisky Dingo, protagonist Killface quotes the poem in ironic reference to his plans to destroy earth, and later wonders if he might have infringed Shelley's copyright.

A third season episode of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda was titled "The Lone and Level Sands."

[edit] Literature

• Author, psychiatrist, and philosopher M. Scott Peck referenced the poem in his literature as a tribute to the limited nature, and finite historical footprint of most individual humans, no matter how great the person was in their time.
• The trilogy of novels The Tripods, set in a post-apocalyptic world where people live a 17th-century existence among the ruins of the 20th century, an insane character claims his name is Ozymandias, and asserts, "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair." The protagonist, Will, remembers reading the name in a poem.
• The poem was referenced and printed in full in the first book of the Children of the Lamp series.
• In the Deathstalker series, Owen Deathstalker has an AI named Ozymandias that turns on Owen but is "killed". He is resurrected several times throughout the series for different purposes.
• In Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club, the narrator writes: "I am Ozymandias, king of kings," near the end of Chapter 28.
• The sonnet is referenced in George R. R. Martin's early novel Fevre Dream.
• Robert Silverberg wrote a short story based on the classic poem.
• Ozymandias appears in Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series. He plays a prominent role in the sixth book, For Love of Evil, helping the protagonist, Parry, ascend as Satan to the office of Evil. The famous couplet "My name is...and despair!" is quoted, and the end of the poem is paraphrased.
• "My name is...and despair!" is also quoted in The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.
• Jasper Fforde's book The Eyre Affair features a character named of Detective Inspector Oswald Mandias.
• Ozymandias is quoted in the prologue of Jared M. Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, which analyses the downfall of many of history's great civilizations.
• Ozymandias is the name of the circus elephant in G.P. Taylor's fantasy novel Tersias.
• In a New York Times op-ed column on August 15, 2006, Thomas Frank described two once-famous 19th Century Americans as being "as obscure as Ozymandias".
• Ozymandias is the name of one of the flying children in James Patterson's When the Wind Blows.
• "My name is Ozymandias... despair" is quoted by Jack Ryan in the final pages of Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October.
• References are made to Ozymandias and the poem in the Star Trek-based novel Federation by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens.
• The character Finn in Angela Carter's 1967 novel The Magic Toyshop misquotes Ozymandias by proclaiming: "Look on my works, ye mighty, and beware".

[edit] Music

• Shelley's poem was referenced in the The Sisters of Mercy song "Dominion/Mother Russia" on the album Floodland.^[3]
• Ozymandias is mentioned in The Stranglers' song "Ugly", from their 1977 album Rattus Norvegicus. Stranglers bassist Jean Jacques Burnel, who wrote the lyrics for "Ugly", later used the words of "Ozymandias" (without credit to Shelley) as the lyric to the B side of his 7" single "Freddie Laker (Concorde and Eurobus)".
• The fourth album of the German medieval techno group Qntal is titled Ozymandias, and the title track whispers the phrase "My name is Ozymandias" several times.
• "My Name Is Ozymandias" appears as a song title by Gatsbys American Dream on their 2006 self-titled full-length album. "The White Mountains" and "Shadows of Colossus" are also titles to songs on the album. These also are references to Ozymandias and The Tripods book series.
• "Ozymandias" appears as a song by The Black League on their 2000 full-length album "Ichor".

"Ozymandias" Dan Cooper's musical composition written for and dedicated to Edward H. Simpson, Cooper's high-school teacher,1999

• "Ozymandias" is the title of a song in the 2006 album "...Waltzing Alone" by The Guggenheim Grotto.

[edit] Comics

• One of the primary characters Alan Moore's comic book limited series Watchmen is named Ozymandias as part of his fascination with Alexander the Great and Ramesses II. The poem also provided the source for the title of issue #11, "Look on My Works, Ye Mighty" and ends with a quote from the poem.
• In Marvel Comics, Ozymandias is a servant of the supervillain Apocalypse in the X-Men franchise. He first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #332.
• In the first strip of the webcomic Errant Story, the poem is quoted in full. Phrases from the poem are used as the titles of subsequent chapters.
• Cartoonist Dorothy Gambrell refers to Ozymandias in a strip entitled "Memory Lanes", part of her webcomic Cat and Girl. A trophy with part of the poem engraved on it was also made available through her site.
• Ozymandias is the name of one of the title characters in D.C. Simpson's Ozy and Millie. A lyric of the poem is referenced on March 7, 2001.
• In the "Huntress" back-up feature of Wonder Woman vol. I, no. 319, the solution to a statue forgery crime comes to Helena Wayne as she reads Shelley's "Ozymandias" in bed.
• In the online comic Funny Farm by Ryan Smith, Mileena mentioned growing up with a boy named Ozymandias during a flashback on October 4,2000.

[edit] Games

• An excerpt from the poem is included in the computer game Civilization IV.
• Ozymandias appears in an easter egg in Perfect Dark, a console game. Cassandra DeVries' necklace has the code "18M0ZYM8ND185". This, upon inspection, spells out "IAMOZYMANDIAS", and likely refers to DeVries' power complex.
• In the computer game Escape from Monkey Island, one of the villains proclaims: "I am Ozzie Mandrill, King of the Caribbean! Look on my works, ye mighty pirates, and despair!"
• The Machinima group Strange Company produced a version of the poem using Machinima technology in 1999, which was praised by film critic Roger Ebert.
• An excerpt from the poem was included in the Apple II computer game "Ultima II" in approximately 1980.
• In the last level of Jurassic Park: Trespasser, there is an easter egg where John Hammond (played by Richard Attenborough) quotes the entire poem in a voice-over.
• The Xbox game Dino Crisis 3 takes place in an intergalactic colony ship named the Ozymandias.

[edit] The poem and archaeology

The "wrinkled lip and sneer" are not actually found on any extant sculptures of Ramses II or any other Pharaoh. Pharaonic faces always have a Buddha-like serenity in Egyptian art.

[edit] See also

• Egypt in the European imagination
• Sonnet

[edit] Further reading

• Reiman, Donald H. and Sharon B. Powers. Shelley's Poetry and Prose. Norton, 1977. ISBN 0-393-09164-3.
• Shelley, Percy Bysshe and Theo Gayer-Anderson (illust.) Ozymandias. Hoopoe Books, 1999. ISBN 977-5325-82-X
• Rodenbeck, John. “Travelers from an Antique Land: Shelley's Inspiration for ‘Ozymandias,’” Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 24 (“Archeology of Literature: Tracing the Old in the New”), 2004, pp. 121-148.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Representative Poetry Online: Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), Ozyman (text of poem with notes)
• World Treasures (National Library of Australia) (autograph fair copy of the text from one of Shelley's notebooks; shows slight variants against modern editions)
• Horace Smith's poem of the same name, and of the same themes
• Ramesses the Great (general information about Ramesses)
• Cultural Politics and the Crisis of the University (article by Henry Giroux on the ideological and literary position of Harold Bloom among others)