![]() ![]() Poets should watch over the powerful, as a lesson of humility and judgment. With his poetry, Shelley reduces human pride and highlights the limits of power. Sure enough, a sonnet like Ozymandias shows how real and relevant that statement is. For art establishes the basic human truth which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment. When power narrows the areas of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. To him, poetry was a means of saving power from itself. As a matter of fact, this tradition left a trail that continues nowadays, with young Amanda Gorman at Joe Biden‘s swearing-in.īy the way, Kennedy noted that in his works Frost coupled poetry and power. Kennedy was a pioneer in inviting a poet to such a relevant political event. Frost was one of his favorite authors, but he was also the poet that read his inaugural address as a newly-elected President. In doing so, he spoke about Robert Frost. Kennedy delivered a speech about the importance of educated citizens and about the role of the artist in modern society. On October 26, 1963, during a ceremony at Amherst College in Massachusetts, John F. Ergo, powerful people should look at that statue “and despair”, because the punishment for arrogance is oblivion. The pedestal near the monument also asserts that the visage of the king was destroyed by Lubbock football players after losing a game to Amarillo, which while plausible, is of course false. All the great richness and deeds of Ozymandias are nothing but a bunch of abandoned remains in present times. The parable of the ancient Pharaoh shows the inconsistency of power, which is ephemeral and fleeting as is everything that concerns humankind. With Ozymandias, Shelley constructs a warning for the mighty of the Earth. Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! A warning for the Mighty Then, he proceeds to read the inscription on his pedestal: The traveler describes the facial expression of the statue, as full of arrogance and haughtiness. It is abandoned, destroyed, and covered in sand. The focus of the description is on the ruins of the work of art. So, Shelley wanted curiosity and fascination to build up while reading the text. Indeed, faraway lands are full of mysteries and oddities. In truth, the vagueness draws the reader back to the great desire for exoticism that Romantic writers had. In the sonnet, the books of Diodorus Siculus became “a traveler from an antique land”. Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,Īnd wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone As a result, Shelley wrote a sonnet called Ozymandias, which was in fact the surname of Ramesses II. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work”. In narrating his voyages and discoveries, he described a huge statue in the middle of the desert and quoted its inscription: “ King of Kings Ozymandias am I. In particular, Shelley took inspiration from the works of an Ancient Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus. Bust of Ramesses II, British Museum, London. ![]()
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