Question

The last 5 lines of "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley reads: "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." The crumbling statue, "decay," "colossal wreck," "boundless and bare /…lone and level sands" all communicate thematic ideas of __________. time, change, and mutability death and rebirth a mighty ruler’s destructive prowess hell on earth

Answer 1

The crumbling statue, "decay," "colossal wreck," "boundless and bare / … lone and level sands" all communicate thematic ideas of time, change, and mutability.

"Ozymandias" are two sonnets about King Ramsesses II of Egypt, published in 1818. Their main theme is how time and nature destroy everything, even the greatest empires. In this excerpt, Ramsesses II is describing how he is seeing the grandeur of his reign and his feats fall into oblivion.

Shelley started writing the poem in 1817, after learning that the British Museum's had acquired a piece of a statue of Ramesses II from the 13th century BC.