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.