Akala:It's the year 1817. In North Africa, preparations are under way to transport a very special cargo by boat. A gigantic, seven-tonne statue, a relic from ancient Egypt, is about to be transported to London. People in England begin to wonder what secrets this enigmatic figure will have to tell.
But Percy Shelley didn't wait for the boat to arrive; he fired up his imagination and began to write.
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley:
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.
Akala:So, here we are on Crosby beach, which is an interesting place to come when we think about the poem Ozymandias—this ancient king who has this statue that, in some ways, is going to allow him to live for eternity.
And these Antony Gormley figures, one could argue, are trying to do that same thing.
Hannah Lowe:They are Gormley's sort of self-conscious declaration, aren't they, about man facing nature and the ravages of time? What's different with this compared to the monuments to Ramses II, was that they were meant to defy time, to be there for eternity.
Akala:And that brings us to who Ozymandias was. Ozymandias is the Greek name for the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II. And thousands of years since the death of Ramses, we can go and visit that statue in one of the largest museums in the world, down there in London.
Very interesting how the symbols of one empire become the monuments of another.
Hannah Lowe:Of another.
Akala:I'm enjoying the little Shelley. Let's not skip over that. I'm carrying my little… Your pocket Shelley. Tell me about the expression.
Hannah Lowe:We hear about Ozymandias' or the statue's "wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command," which sort of implies that he wasn't a particularly pleasant man. He was a man that looked at other people in a disdainful way. And also, "The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed," I think is so interesting because we see two contrasting lines.
On the one hand, he looked down on his people, but on the other hand, it was him that fed them, which implies a kindness but it also implies a sense of power.
Akala:Mm-hm, of course.
Hannah Lowe:So I think in the short poem within the sonnet, Shelley delivers quite a complicated portrait of the statue depicting the real man.
Akala:Yeah.
Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!
Anthony Anaxagorou:
To have the words "boundless and bare," "cold command," they create quite a detached and almost callous images when you kind of say them.
Young Deacon:"Colossal wreck," it's, like, it kind of shows the futility of how humans like to strive to control what we can't control.
Immortality doesn't exist.
Anthony Anaxagorou:
Yes.
Young Deacon:And "colossal wreck," that's the perfect juxtaposition. He was massive - "Ozymandias, King of Kings."
Akala:Ozymandias' colossal statues were supposed to give him an eternal life beyond the grave. In Shelley's own time, scientists were trying to harness that very same power. Shelley's wife, Mary Shelley, even heard about experiments where scientists tried to use electricity to reanimate body parts.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley:
I saw - with shut eyes but acute mental vision - the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out; and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion.
Akala:Mary's nightmare became one of the most famous horror stories ever written - Frankenstein.
In what way do you think the Frankenstein story relates to Ozymandias, the poem?
Hannah Lowe:Perhaps it's something to do with man not being humble and accepting their own limitations. Accepting themselves as just another member, an equal member of mankind, humankind, you know?
The Romantics were great proponents of nature. They were celebrants of nature. Um, and so you can imagine that Shelley would've felt that about the idea of trying to lord oneself above nature.
Akala:The poem Ozymandias and the story of Frankenstein both deal with what can happen when our pride and arrogance make us believe we can conquer nature and death. In the end, it will all be swept away by time.
But perhaps Percy and Mary Shelley did find a kind of immortality as they live on in their ideas and in their work.
Hip-Hop star Akala and poet Hannah Lowe explore Shelley’s poem ‘Ozymandias’ and how it illustrates the transience of power.
The clip uses Anthony Gormley's artwork "Another Place" on Crosby Beach to highlight the themes of change and the strength of nature.
They make links between the poem and the concerns of creating and controlling life depicted in the novel Frankenstein, written by Shelley's wife Mary.
Young poets discuss the language and meaning of the poem.
This clip is from the series Between the Lines: The Romantics.
Teacher Notes
Discuss the poem’s content, ideas, language and structure. What emotions are evoked?
Pupils could look into context, compare alternative interpretations of the poem and explore Shelley’s world, and the influences behind his poem/poetry.
Curriculum Notes
Romantic poetry is a key requirement on the new English Literature GCSE syllabus being taught from 2015 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
