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.”

I was undoubtedly confused after my first read. I barely got past the title as tried to figure out the significance of Ozymandias. I had never heard of the name before, so I dissected the name for meaning. I tried separating the “Ozy” from the “mandias” or the “Ozyman” from the “dias” but I could not come to any definitive conclusions to the meaning of the name. After a long ten minutes trying to get anything from the title, I decided to actually read the poem. The beginning threw me for a loop as the descriptions hardly made sense to me. Like why is there a face in the sand and what is the meaning of that expression? I wasn’t sure if this was literal or something metaphorical. I also had no clue what “Tell the sculptor… these words appear” meant at all or how it’s applied.  At least at the end of the poem, I found out that Ozymandias was a king. I wasn’t sure what the last three lines were referring to as it talks about an almighty king and then decay and destruction right after.  All I really knew was that the sculptor in the desert is off Ozymandias since the pedestal says so. I was pretty clueless.

Without really knowing who Ozymandias was, I felt pretty clueless. I knew the King was important to the poem as it’s the title of the poem. I knew if I figured out who the king was I could figure the purpose of the sculpture and perhaps the purpose of the poem. Without any context of the time period or knowledge of the king, it’s hard to decipher the rest of the poem. The last three lines confuse me the most. It refers to this thing that doesn’t remain anymore as it is decaying and is a wreck. There isn’t much context to this thing nor does the author identify it. I don’t know if it relates to the king or is a separate thought. More context to the king would also help determine the meaning of the statue being broken down and the expression on the face. I assume the statue was from a very long time as the land is referred to as “antique”, but is the statue broken down because of time or for another reason. Then what role does the sand play? I know the sand is important as it’s mentioned often in the poem, but does it have importance to the king? Or is it just to define the location of the place? I need more knowledge of the king and more context in general to have a better understanding of the images the author creates. It’s hard to find the meaning of this poem without knowing what he’s referring to. All I really know was that the king was all-powerful at one point.

The wording does not make it much better. The poem read like a riddle as the sentences were short and everything was choppy. The words weren’t in an order which made too much sense either. These lines are the worst of the whole poem:

I hardly understand anything from these three lines.  The first line doesn’t make any sense to me compared to the rest of the lines. What can you tell from the sculptor? What does “those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things” even mean? Whose hand and heart is the author referring to? Is it referring to the statue? If it is, how can a statue be fed? What does stamped on these lifeless things even mean? It’s really hard to read and just makes the poem even more confusing.

I wasn’t able to figure much out till I was searching up a picture of the king for this post.  When I saw the picture of him, I was like “Oh that’s an Egyptian King”. Just from knowing where the king was from, I was able to connect the dots better. Now that I knew the context I could make sense of the poem. I could figure out that the sand in this case is referring to the location of his kingdom. Since I knew the kingdom built by the ancient Egyptians had been long destroyed and turned to sand, the last lines finally made sense. It was referring to how his almighty kingdom resorted to an endless barren desert of sand: “Nothing besides remain. Round the decay”. Though I don’t really know which king it is, knowing the king is Egyptian helped me decipher what the poem was about. However, I still am not sure of the meaning of the poem. I wonder if knowing more about the king would allude to its meaning or give more insight. I know the poem is about this king whose kingdom has been lost to the sand (/time), but why is that important?

It comes to show how much context can play a big role in figuring out what the poem is trying to depict. Without any context of the king, it made trying to find meaning in the poem really difficult. It would also help knowing more about Ozymandias and the condition of the kingdom during his reign. Even with that context, I still can’t really figure out the meaning as I still feel like I am missing out on some references (if there are any) or the bigger picture. I mean it would be easier to work out if the author didn’t write it so weirdly. Like what in the world do those three lines even mean??