Analysis of Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 (Horsham) – 1822 (Lerici)



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.'


Scheme ABACADEDFEGHGH
Poetic Form
Metre 11010011011 111101111 1001011101 1101010111 0101011101 1111011101 1101111101 0111100111 0101001101 1111111 1111110001 1001011001 1101011001 0101011101
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 623
Words 116
Sentences 6
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 14
Lines Amount 14
Letters per line (avg) 35
Words per line (avg) 8
Letters per stanza (avg) 491
Words per stanza (avg) 113
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on May 03, 2023

34 sec read
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Percy Bysshe Shelley

Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded by critics as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. more…

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