One face....In An Artist's Studio

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..."

My favorite poem is Ozymandias by Percy Shelley.

This poem analyzes the human inferiority among time and death. The story of this traveller telling his experience to the narrator is a metaphor for man’s disadvantage against life and its course. The traveller tells “I met a traveller” (l.1) the story of a statue he saw in the desert. The inscription on the statue and the shape of the sculpture scare the reader: “Two vast and trunk less legs of stone/ Stand in the desert“(L.2), this shows how, in the past, these two legs where part of a possible great statue and men. Power could therefore, be transmitted even after the destruction of the statue itself, the reader is in fact captured and afraid of these rests of a possible monumental statue, that intrigues and incurious us.
Ozymandias, the king in honor of whom the statue was built, tries to transmit power and superiority throughout this statue, the inscription on the monument has this king’s words, which seem to be full of hubris: “"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings”. Unfortunately, all the king’s possessions were lost in with time, and the powerful Ozymandias and his statue are nothing but dust and “lifeless things”.

I was amazed by this poem, because it illustrates perfectly how man feels strong and powerful during life only for the superficial and materialistic goods possessed. As Ozymendias, we are all proud of our “works”, we are proud of them, and of what we built throughout life. But these works, after death, might remain on earth; their relative importance instead, will remain just a “wreck”. Man as Ozymendias, will therefore never be able de defeat death and time. This “king of kings” tried to remain in history, to stay alive after his death, but the course of time can only erase all his hubris and his numerous tries. Maybe not during our lives, maybe after our death, we are all on a same level, we are all dust, and our “works” remain destroyed by time on earth. This shows how miserable man is compared to everything else. Life is therefore miserable compared to death.
This poem describes well man’s position in the hierarchical rang of powers, on the bottom of this rang. Man’s desire of power and the subjective view on life illustrates as well how time destroys all the small things man cares about, things that are really small compared to the rest of nature, the universe and imagination.
Imagination plays in fact a key role in this sonnet; the poet uses a short story, with a touch of unrealistic point of view, to help the reader adopt an objective view on life. As Ozymendias, we are all meant to lose against time and death.

Ozymandias - Romain

The sonnet Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, emits an intriguing and seducing atmosphere. It feels “far away” and mysterious. The author uses a number of different tools in order to emit this particular atmosphere throughout his sonnet. First it seems that the vocabulary plays an important part. The words “traveler”, “antique land”, “vast”, “desert”, “decay”, “colossal”, “far away” and others all contribute to the creation of this antique, warm and mysterious feeling the reader gets when reading the sonnet.

It feels as if the use of narration inside the sonnet also contributes to the creation of this particular, warm atmosphere. The fact that a character (the “traveler from an antique land”) is telling a story creates the ambiance of a story more than a sonnet. It reminds the reader in some ways of a bedtime story, maybe of an exploration expedition in Egypt, and certainly gives the sonnet a warm feel to it.

Now, more importantly, the metaphor included in the sonnet is exceptionally interesting. In great irony, the once almighty “king of kings” who once mocked his inferiors, and fed his people, is now dead along with his entire kingdom, and his statue is slowly falling apart. This goes to demonstrate that one is never truly almighty, not even the “king of kings”, and that power can only be held by a man for so long. Indeed it is shown that only nature is truly almighty, as it always prevails and always overcomes man in the end. Therefore in a way this sonnet also beautifully underlines the importance and the power of nature.

In an Artist's Studio

The Sonnet that I like the most out of this packet was : In an Artist's Studio, by Christiana Rossetti. The author talks about a man who draws non-stop a picture of a young, beautiful girl. This artist seems to be in love with this young girl.


This Sonnet talks about empty love. At a first read I though this poem was romantic. There are many indications that make it seem like it is a passionate love. To begin with the fact that, he draws her and only her, then he compares her to a “saint”etc... But then I re-read and realized that the artist was not in-love with the young girl. It is an empty love. He is not in love with the girl but of the image of the girl. We see this because he does not give her a name “the nameless girl”, because he does not make any attempt to talk to this girl, or try to find this amazing girl in the outside world he just “feeds upon her face day and night”.

"Look on my works ye mighty and despair..."

Rita Dove on "The Island Women of Paris"

My grandmother always wanted to go to Paris.  She would tell, read about Paris in
the library, she would go out and get books and she would talk about all the places you
could go to see, when you went to Paris.  My grandmother never did get a chance to get
to go to Paris, but when I went to Paris, I went there for her the first time.  When I saw
these women walking the streets of Paris who knew how to stand up under the, what shall
we say, the appreciation of a glance or a stare.  They knew how to do it.  And I thought,
my grandmother would have felt right at home here.  Looking at other people is a
municipal sport in Paris, it is not impolite to look.  The women who were looked at and
bore it with the most grace were those women from the islands—from Martinique and
Réunion.

When I have fears taht I may cease to be- John Keats

   When I have fears that I may cease to be is a sonnet written by John Keats in 1818. In this poem he expresses his recurring fear of dying without living the life that he wished to have. All the things that used to matter to him such as fame and wealth now seem to be unimportant. “When” shows that he must have thought about this feeling before. In the first quatrain, Keats shows how much he has to express. Indeed, he is both the field of grain and the harvester. The alliteration in “g” exposes the imagery of the harvest: “glean’d”, “garners”, “grain”. He wants to be remembered as a famous writer and fears to fail. In the second quatrain, his “magic hand” l. 8 represents him as a poet and his ability to transform nature into poetry: “the night’s starr’d face” l.5 and “Huge cloudy symbols” l.6. He sees beauty everywhere and is scared that he will not have the time to show it: “to trace their shadows” l.7-8. In the next quatrain, Keats turns to his fear of losing love: “fair creature of an hour” l.9, “I shall never look upon thee more” l.10. This parallels the idea of time; love doesn’t last long. For the poet, Love has two qualities. Firstly, there is the “faery power” that can change the world for the people in love, making it better. Then there is the “unreflecting love” l.12 reminding us of the illusion and imaginary aspect of this world. The exclamation sentences emphasize his desperation. By the end of the sonnet, Keats makes Fame and Love appear unimportant: “till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink” l.14. “I stand alone” l.13 towards “the wide world” l.13 emphasizes the fact that nothing else matters. “The shore” is the limit between him and the rest of the world; he distances himself. John Keats died in February 1821 at 26 years old and he is now remembered as one of the most important poets of his time.