Poetry - Ozymandias Poem Comparison (Smith vs Shelley)

Smith vs Shelley

With the acquisition of a 7.25-ton fragment of a statue of Ramses II of Egypt, known as "Ozymandias" by the Greeks, poets Horace Smith and Percy Shelley decided to engage in a friendly competition of poetry. Their poems both deal with a statue of Ozymandias found in the desert, but their approach to the monument differs in both their interpretation of the importance of the statue as well as, even with both poems being sonnets, the rhyme scheme and verse flow.

Smith’s poem follows a rhyme scheme of abbababc in the initial octave which is somewhat similar to the Petrarchan rhyme scheme of abbaabba but then sticks to the Petrarchan sonnet only in the numbers of verses per stanza (an octave followed by a sextet). Smith’s poem rolls nicely off the tongue thanks to the many pauses he includes through commas and em dashes, giving it a lyrical reading. Nonetheless, Smith’s poem conveys a single meaning that becomes clear in the final sextet. The octave tells us of the great Ozymandias and how, even being the King of Kings, now nothing but the Leg remains. It then poses us a question in the ending sextet: might this be the fate of England in the future? A great Empire now reduced to a single, broken leg?

Shelley’s poem follows a rhyme scheme of ababacdc edefef which is only similar to the Shakespearean sonnet’s rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg in the first and final four lines. The reading is somewhat harsher than Smith’s with words at the end of verses having to be read with the following line to not lose tempo. In the first line, “I met a traveller from an antique land/who said…” the word “land” has to be immediately followed by “who said”, making the reading somewhat awkward compared to Smith’s. Formal elements aside, Shelley’s content in the Ozymandias poem is much more complex than Smith’s reading. Shelley writes of the same broken statue paying testimony to the once-Great Ozymandias but does not offer insight as to how this should be interpreted. The Greatness in Shelley’s “Ozymandias” lies in its ambiguity as to how it should be digested. Shelley speaks of the sculptor that captured the life of Ozymandias in stone—allowing for interpretation that it is the artist and his or her work that have the final laugh, or sneer, even if it is done in cold, hard stone. Shelley also speaks of nothing beside the statue, only the lone and level sands that stretch far away—allowing for the interpretation that all Greats fall and that their feats are swallowed by time.

All the same, Shelley does not commit to either interpretation and offers more flexibility to the reader’s interpretation of his poem, giving his writing a dimension of complexity that Smith’s work is lacking. To me and to many, Shelley’s work is greater and its popularity bears witness to that.

In case you want to read the poems:

Ozymandias - By Horace Smith

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws The only shadow that the Desert knows:— "I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone, "The King of Kings; this mighty City shows "The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,— Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose The site of this forgotten Babylon. We wonder,—and some Hunter may express Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace, He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess What powerful but unrecorded race Once dwelt in that annihilated place

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.

White Teeth - Author's Attitude

Author's attitude towards Irie

Ch 11 - The Miseducation of Irie Jones

In chapter 11, The Miseducation of Irie Jones, the author begins talking extensively about Irie, mostly about her physical appearance. Irie is not slim by any means and the author is quick to note that Irie Jones "was big." There is no effort made by the author in any way to understate the physical appearance of Irie with instead the opposite happening. The author mentions that Irie had a “substantial Jamaican frame” full of somewhat-inappropriate-for-a-description-of-a-teenager “pineapples, mangoes and guavas.” Zadie Smith takes on different approaches at describing Irie. Put bluntly, “the girl had weight; big tits, big butt, big hips, big thighs, big teeth.” And comically, “she was thirteen stone and had thirteen pounds in her savings account.” Ultimately, though, the author feels like the way Irie’s weight is (no pun intended) overblown. Irie’s mother, Clara, tells Irie that she’s fine—she’s just built like an honest-to-God Bowden. While this could be the case of a mother trying to lift up her daughter’s self-esteem, the author concedes that Irie is fine when she says “Irie didn’t know she was fine” without any sarcasm or irony being in the word ‘fine’. The author’s words are constantly putting down Irie without any real contempt or vitriol being present in her voice. The author is speaking about Irie in the way Irie sees herself in an attempt at showing that, while not completely off the mark as Irie is bigger than most girls, she’s not how she shouldn’t be physically. The author feels like Irie’s doubts about her physical appearance are normal and that she’s big, with no way around that, but that she’s making a big deal out of something she shouldn’t.

Macbeth - Ambiguity and Contradictions

React to our recent lessons on ambiguity and contradictions: How do ambiguity and contradictions within Shakespeare's work, specifically in terms of diction/paradoxes, stress and nonverbal communication play a role in the work? 

Shakespeare's Macbeth is an interesting experience for the reader due to the way the story interacts with its audience. The story starts by giving the audience an explanation of the major events that will unfold, a bold act that leaves the audience wondering why these actions will occur and how they will unfold. With Macbeth being a play, Shakespeare seems to want to give its audience an exciting venture into theatre that offers little breathing room as the audience is forced to think on its feet and guess the meaning of seeming contradictions, play on words, and insufficient information for both characters and the audience. 

Macbeth's Act 1 Scene 1 shows us the prophecy of the three witches that reveal how Macbeth is destined to become the King of the Scots but that "fair is foul and foul is fair," a contradiction that seems to imply that this Kinghood will not be all fine and dandy as expected, creating confusion and uncertainty as the audience doesn't know what to think of the prophesied events. The ambiguity regarding this position is not lost on Macbeth, who does not immediately believe what the witches are foretelling the truth. This ambiguity helps build suspense and creates expectations of what is to come in the play as, when the holes in the plot are made so big and clear for the audience to see, it becomes impossible for the audience not to try to fill the holes in the plot. To Shakespeare's end of keeping the audience in suspense, his use of ambiguity and paradoxes serve his purpose.

A Very British Renaissance

Having seen a documentary on the British Renaissance, I must say that I am quite impressed. Not because I thought that the British Renaissance was bad or lacking in any way, rather because when I thought about the Renaissance, I did not think of Britain at all.

The video made a good showing of why the British Renaissance isn't as talked about as the Italian Renaissance--not for lack of talent in Britain but more because of the over-centralizing focus on the Italian Renaissance.

What I learned about the painters in Britain was unexpectedly interesting. Of course there are great painters in every country that experiences a Golden Age for the arts and obviously there would be innovation in the arts within that time, but I was nonetheless surprised at the intricacies of the creation process of the miniature paintings. The painstaking details and processes carried out to make the painting seem unique and relieved (3D looking) were fascinating to learn, more so when this was coupled with the history behind why these miniature paintings were created, how the craftsman that made them learned that trade, and the significance they held to those that purchased them. Indeed, Brits were quite the lovebirds at all stages of the renaissance (Queen kind of included).

Once I got over the positively gag-worthy display of British man-fangirling over the did-you-know-it's-just-as-good-as-the-Italian-Renaissance-no-trust-me-really-this-building-has-5-sides-it's-like-amazing Renaissance thinly disguised as professional narration, I came to really appreciate the British Renaissance as presented in the documentary because of how the art mixed with the perspective the country had on their role in the world: that of an empire. The paintings that shifted toward the New World and Britain's future on it piqued my historical interest and it was intriguing for me to see how the Empirical Britain which I have read about and know well be represented in the art of that era. It's a side of Britain I had never thought much about, until now.

Cannery Row - Themes

2. Write about a theme from Cannery Row that you would like to discuss more about in future discussions. How does the author approach this theme? Why is this theme important in the book?

A theme from Cannery Row that I would like to discuss more is how the members of Cannery Row function as part of a bigger whole—an organism. But the part of this theme that I would like to explore is not how the organism comes to subsist through the citizens of Cannery Row but rather the function that Cannery Row inhabitants have for this organism. I believe that the theme of Cannery Row being likened to a living organism is well-understood and accepted, but, like in all organisms, there are tissues and organs that do more than others for the whole or are more important. To my first glance, Cannery Row seemed like a book that was written just to be written, that is, it shows you a world for the sake of letting you understand and know what happens there. Upon further analysis I saw the intricacies of Cannery Row and how Steinbeck created a sort-of biological book on the organism that is Cannery Row. This theme is important as we also have to look at the intricacies of the organism analogy to completely analyze and understand this theme. In Cannery Row following this analogy, who are those that add little to the functioning of the organism as a whole or, even worse, those that could be surgically removed without seriously impairing the operations of the organism? The author approaches this theme—indirectly, by creating the analogy between Cannery Row and organisms you can study. It stands to reason that the different parts of the Cannery Row organism can be identified through the book.

Cannery Row - AP Questions

1. Reflect upon the process of responding to multiple choice, close reading questions about Cannery Row and the prologue. Also, reflect upon the process of creating your own questions and discuss how you wrote the questions.

Having to create a set of multiple choice questions for an excerpt from Cannery Row was much more… time-consuming than I anticipated for two reasons: the excerpt had to contain sufficient material from which I would be able to draw questions and the questions for the various pieces of the excerpt had to be tricky enough that they would not be intuitive, that is, I would have to look for a passage that allows for multiple interpretations and choose questions as well as answers that are complex enough to throw the reader in for a loop.

Once I had chosen my excerpt I started constructing my questions. I began by choosing one of the three question types we were to use (interpretation, comprehension, literary device) and answering it in detail. I wondered how an AP test maker would build their answers and set that as my benchmark for how difficult I wanted my questions to be. I began to cut down on the length of my answer so as to make it a little bit vague. I wouldn’t want the specificity of my answer to give it away immediately so I opted to either remove the parts of my answer that made it seem too detailed or showered my false answers in other details to make them seem appealing. After building my main answer, I started to think of what wrongful impressions I had of the part of the excerpt I was answering when I first read it. My logic was the following: if on the first reading I would have jumped at this answer, then it was worth putting as a false lead.

Reservation Blues - Elements of Storytelling

Elements of Storytelling in Reservation Blues

Sherman Alexie’s novel, Reservation Blues, balances out various elements that make a story worth telling and captivate the audience. From the reservation syntax that is present throughout the novel to the vivid juxtaposition of Indian past and present, Sherman Alexie manages to create a story that captures the reader’s attention and transmits the values and attitudes Sherman Alexie wished to convey.

One of the basic elements of storytelling that Sherman Alexie plays with the most is the theme of modern-era expectations of what Indians are, both by the reader and the character in the story. Big Mom is a perfect example of Sherman Alexie poking fun at the expectations of everyone involved in the story. At many points in the story, Sherman Alexie sets up situations where the readers expect Indian stereotypes to show.

On page 203, there is an exchange between Coyote Springs and Big Mom where Big Mom reveals she knows Coyote Springs are going to play for some record company. When the bandmates question how she knows this, Big Mom’s answer is “Ancient Indian magic.” Victor calls her bluff and mentions that “Everybody on the reservation knows about it by now. Ain’t no magic in that.” The mention of “Ancient Indian magic” is Sherman Alexie telling the reader that he understands what the stereotypes of Indians are, and that a traditional Indian story would take this as fact, playing off of what non-Indian readers expect from Indian stories. Victor’s reply to Big Mom is Sherman Alexie’s way of telling the reader that these expectations are not realistic, as an alcoholic Indian can call them out for the lies that they are.

Even so, Sherman Alexie understands that these themes of Indian stereotypes are so deeply embedded into modern United States that they even reach Indians. On page 302, following the fry bread dilemma, Big Mom manages to fix the problem by splitting the pieces of fry bread and handing them out to the hungry Indians, all the while asking for the creator to grant her the power to feed them. An incredulous Thomas asks Big Mom how she was capable of performing such a feat, and to this Big Mom simply replies: “mathematics.” Thomas’s and the other Indians’ praise and willingness to believe in the magical powers serve as evidence of Sherman Alexie exposing the self-stereotyping of Indians.

These short but powerful conflicts drive home the theme of expectations about Indians they themselves and the readers have.