Percy Bysshe Shelley
“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.”
In Ozymandias Shelley creates a sublime effect by illustrating the decaying grand statue of Ozymandias. While it stands alone in the desert the statute represents the once great ruler who sat on top of the world with all the power to go with it. Edmund Burke’s sublime aesthetic is articulated in this poem through the legacy of power that has long been forgotten, except for the decaying representation of the king, which is the statute. Ozymandias is not only about the power of nature as Burkes theory of sublime suggests. It is about the power the artist and sculptor of this statute had to withstand time. The artist created this statute to represent the power and might of the king Ozymandias, and despite the decaying state it is in still was able to survive the wreckage of time. There is a power struggle between the artist that created the statute to withstand the wreckage of time and the monarch who the statute is of. The statute that was created by the artist outlived the monarch and has still withstood time. With Shelley’s depiction of the “great work” that is the statute; one pictures a megalithic structure that is overwhelming to the viewer yet awe inspiring at the same time. With the image of the statute being a “wreck, boundless and bare,” the reader gets an image of this statue as beautiful but also pitiful and horrifying as well. It is clear that no matter how powerful a ruler may be he cannot beat the power of nature and that is what Shelley is proving with this poem. The king thought he would forever live with as the sculpture created to represent his reign was to stand forever; the truth is the sculpture is not stronger than nature. Just like the ruler died and withered away eventually so will the decaying statue.
