BROADCASTS.com

b'

Percy Shelley - Ozymandius - The Frankenstein Poetry Supplement

\\xa0

Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver.

\\xa0

I am Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.\\xa0 We just finished talking through the much adored classic Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and we went everywhere in our discussion of that book.\\xa0 I know I said this pretty much every episode but I stayed amazed the entire time about how many layers of meaning she had going on and she was only 18.\\xa0 We talked about politics, gender-politics, religion, psychology, philosophy, chemistry, the natural sciences, drug addiction and geography- talk about\\xa0 \\u201cno stone uncovered\\u201d.

\\xa0

True- and although I spent about four episodes disparaging Percy, today I am going to turn an about face- and talk about what was good and yes- perhaps even great- about the other Shelley- Percy Shelley, the less famous of the two- I\\u2019m pretty sure- ironically, although I\\u2019m really not sure if that\\u2019s true.\\xa0 But, in fairness, Percy is truly a great writer of lyric poetry and definitely worthy of study- so today we want to highlight one- at least one- I\\u2019d kind of like to do more honestly, but maybe another day- of his most famous works- there were a couple to choose from, but I decided to go with the sonnet- Ozymandias,\\xa0 And yes, as much as I hate to admit it, there is much that was indeed very positive about this brilliant yet troubled young man- and yes, he will always be young, because sadly he died at age 29.

\\xa0

\\xa0Well, there\\u2019s a spoiler for you\\u2026.I think Mary Shelley would be the first to tell you that people are most often not all good or all bad, although she did create some pretty perfect people in her fiction, but that\\u2019s fiction- we in real life- \\xa0are just people- complicated, messy, passionate,\\xa0 sometimes misguided, sometimes good and yes- sometimes even evil- but it\\u2019s never just one thing. To make everything or anyone all one thing or all another is what we call splitting and is a sign of childlike thinking.\\xa0 And we have to look at everyone like that, but for him, perhaps it\\u2019s more obvious.

\\xa0

Not one thing- is a wonderful way of looking at people, especially Percy Shelley.\\xa0 He\\u2019s so interesting albeit infuriating at times.\\xa0 So, let\\u2019s lay it out there- and make our case for the greatness of this guy.

\\xa0

Sure- although I will say, one thing I did find interesting as I started reading a little about him is that he hasn\\u2019t always been really well-received by his county men or even his family- and that persisted \\xa0well into the twentieth century for a lot of different reasons.\\xa0 In fact, I found some really terrible things people said about his work,\\xa0 not just his personal life.\\xa0 T.S. Eliot said he was humorless and pedantic.\\xa0 I saw where one contemporary critic called his work \\u201cdriveling prose run mad\\u201d or worse, \\u201cthe production of a fiend, and calculated for the entertainment of devils in hell\\u201d.

\\xa0

HAHAHA!\\xa0 Dang- tell us how you really feel.\\xa0 \\xa0Shelley\\u2019s experience in the poetry world was different than that of his wife or even some of his closest friends, Shelley was never really able to monetize his poetry.\\xa0 It wasn\\u2019t popular when he wrote it, and it didn\\u2019t\\xa0 sell- which is sad because he never knew how utterly famous he would be 200 years after his death.\\xa0 \\xa0But on the flip side, honestly, he was one poet, unlike some of those others, that didn\\u2019t really need his poetry to make money- well he certainly shouldn\\u2019t have needed it.\\xa0 He was a country gentleman of the best sort- born in 1792, his father was a member of parliament and had lots of money, so Shelley\\u2019s life growing up was one of great privilege.\\xa0 He was raised learning to ride fancy horses, to shoot, and do all the things English gentlemen grew up doing, basically all the things we see portrayed in all the different Julian Fellows series.\\xa0 And he loved all of those things.

\\xa0

True, and in that financial sense, he was very lucky.\\xa0 But that didn\\u2019t mean he was without his problems.\\xa0 He had quite a few- albeit he created several of them.\\xa0 We should start with the fact that He attended Eton, of course.

\\xa0

Of course.

\\xa0

But Eton, I\\u2019m getting the impression, can be a rough place, at least for writers.\\xa0 We\\u2019ve had more than one struggle there.\\xa0 And Shelley is in that club.\\xa0 Other students there were cruel to him.\\xa0 Apparently he was smaller, perhaps shy, and older boys literally chased\\xa0 him with mud balls and called him \\u201cmad shelley\\u201d.

\\xa0

That\\u2019s horrible and truly inexcusable.\\xa0 But, let me play the devils advocate- and I want to say that I never excuse bullying of any kind for any reason under any circumstance.\\xa0 But I have to wonder what was his experience there really like- \\xa0Shelley was not a conformist and I wonder if this made it difficult for him to conform to what are specific protocols and social norms.\\xa0 I saw in on letter he wrote at the age of 11 where he was inviting some kids over to play and he signed it, \\u201cNOT your obedient servant\\u201d- and of course the proper and common way for a proper gentleman to end letters was \\u201cyour obedient servant\\u201d.\\xa0 It gives you an indiction, although a bit of a playful one, that had this penchant for taking the opposite view- whatever that was.\\xa0 It\\u2019s one of those things that can be cute and funny for us in the 21st century, but his natural tendency to defy social norms was a plague that really caused him a lot of problems.

\\xa0

Well, there is no wondering about how his antagonistic views got him into terrible trouble at Oxford.\\xa0 At Oxford, during this time period, every student had to sign a statement of belief agreeing to the basic tenants of the church of England.\\xa0 Well, it just wasn\\u2019t in Shelley to sign it and let it go- especially if he didn\\u2019t believe it.\\xa0 What he did was co-write and distribute a pamplete called \\u2018The Necessity of Atheism\\u201d and not only he did he pass it around campus, but he very boldly mailed to various bishops of the church.\\xa0 And not unexpectedly, he got the pushback you would anticipate.\\xa0 He was immediately kicked out of school and the girl he was engaged to, a girl. Named Harriet Grove, broke off her engagement to him and instead married a clergyman her parents set her up with.

\\xa0

Well, what\\u2019s funny about that is that her rejection didn\\u2019t seem to upset him too much. \\xa0

\\xa0

He was already into free love at this point, and another thing he was into- which today isn\\u2019t all that unusual, but it was for that time period it made him look like quite the oddity was that- he was a vegetarian- and he was a vegetarian for health reasons- so progessive- I must say.\\xa0 So, this as much as the free love commitment really had him labeled a radical.

\\xa0

I will refrain on commenting my opinion on this next part, but there\\u2019s no other way but to let the facts speak for themselves- listen to what happened next. So, not long after the broken engagement\\xa0 he eloped with a 16 year old girl ALSO named Harriet, a Harriet Westbrook, one of his sister\\u2019s good friends and somewhat quickly had two children with her.\\xa0 This elopement made his father very upset, and this relationship with his father wasn\\u2019t good for quite some time- actually I\\u2019m not sure it every recovered\\u2026because Percy kept doing bad things.\\xa0 It is almost like he couldn\\u2019t help it.\\xa0 Honestly, my impression from what I read about him- he kind of reminds me of Queen, the singer- just so full of feeling and emotion- sincere but sometimes off the rail- AND the turbulence in his private life doesn\\u2019t mean he doesn\\u2019t write strong work, by 1813, he was bored with Harriet and on to a new love interest named Elizabeth who inspired his first really famous piece of writing- a piece called Queen Mab- and in his piece, which, I will say, gets mixed reviews- he talks about ideals that are beautiful, a utopian world.\\xa0 There is a strong sense of him wanting the world to be a better place.\\xa0 He believes people can be better people.\\xa0 He has a lot of faith and a lot of hope.\\xa0 And this is attractive.\\xa0 But for me, such a contradiction in terms to a lot of his personal choices.\\xa0 And I don\\u2019t know what to make of it.\\xa0

\\xa0

Well, inside his head, he does dream big dreams, think great thoughts- fix a lot of the world\\u2019s problems but outside inside his head, he keeps doing things to get him in trouble- the next being falling in love with, seducing and running away with mary shelley and her sister, who were both underage- never mind the fact that he\\u2019s married and has two children. \\xa0In fact, Harriet\\u2019s second child and Mary\\u2019s first with Percy are only three months apart.\\xa0 And you may recall from our discussion of this very incident when talking about mary\\u2019s life, Mary Shelley\\u2019s father was not very happy about any of this.\\xa0 He had really admired Percy, but this was too much; however, his convictions didn\\u2019t leave him so upset to stop percy from financially supporting him, which Shelley did for quite some time.

\\xa0

Yes- but even that was a problem- it seems that if you embarrass your family so much, which he obviously did, things can happen- and it seems he provoked his father to cutting off the old allowance.\\xa0 Oops!\\xa0 Now what? Percy can\\u2019t support his lifestyle with no money and this is a problem- because he\\u2019s from a rich family- lots of creditors are willing to lend him cash, he- but he can\\u2019t pay it back so he has to run away (like good old victor in Frankenstein)-the stress of all this self-inflicted stress results in him getting very very very sick- again like Victor.\\xa0 He actually was told he had consumption.\\xa0 And by the time of that famous summer where mary shelley dreamed up Frankenstein, he was back in better financial shape (his grandfather had died and left him some money apparently), and his health seemed to be improving, although he does chose to live in more milder climates for the rest of his life.\\xa0

\\xa0

Well, he was in better shape, but that wasn\\u2019t the case for the other people in mary and percy\\u2019s lives- I guess you can say- just like Victor- but differently since there\\u2019s monster. \\xa0\\xa0His ex-wife, Harriet killed herself, and Mary\\u2019s half-sister killed herself.\\xa0 Mary\\u2019s sisters death seemed to really upset Mary, but Percy, from what I can tell, didn\\u2019t seem too distressed about Harriet, he fairly quickly marries Mary and tries to get his kids back (Harriet had sued him for custody) (which he doesn\\u2019t get- the courts consider him a unfit father- probably wisely)- and the grandparents get the kids.

\\xa0

And again, they have to run away- and for the next four years, they live mostly in Italy.\\xa0 And all scholars agree, that this is where he came into his own and really wrote his best stuff.\\xa0 He did write a lot of different things, we\\u2019ve talked about Prometheus Unbound in the previous episodes. But he wrote a beautiful Elegy on the death of John Keats, the poet who wrote \\u2018ode on an ancient urn\\u201d but honestly, what he\\u2019s most remembered for are his lyric poems.\\xa0

\\xa0

And I do want to take a moment to discuss what that means,\\xa0 Because as you know, I\\u2019m on a lifelong crusade to get people to understand and revisit the idea of poetry- it\\u2019s somewhat fallen out of favor- at least in the classical sense.\\xa0 Lyric poetry, just like lyrics in songs- does not tell a story- when we read it, we aren\\u2019t looking for a sequence of events or analyzing a character and this throws people off, When we read -generally speaking and because we\\u2019re trained from our early childhood story books- we look for the story- and in a lyric poem it\\u2019s so much more intangible.\\xa0 And for most of us- that makes us tired and maybe bored.\\xa0 We have the thought- well, what\\u2019s the point- there wasn\\u2019t a story.

\\xa0

But this doesn\\u2019t have to be frustrating.\\xa0 It can be refreshing- in the way that something like fly-fishing is.\\xa0 Yesterday, and this tangent won\\u2019t be long, I was in a zoom meeting (a wonderful mark of quarantine life)- with a friend of mine who was talking about how wonderful fly fishing is, and I asked her- what makes it better than regular fishing (which I find dull, to be honest), and she said this.\\xa0 Fly fishing completely engulfs you.\\xa0 It engages all of your senses and your mind.\\xa0 You have to look at the current, feel the wind, other stuff too that I didn\\u2019t know what she was talking about- but what struck me and how it is analogous to this is she said something to the effect of this- it completely relieves stress because when you are engaged in fly-fishing you are NOT worried about anything else in your life- you don\\u2019t have the mental place for it- it honestly doesn\\u2019t even matter if you ever catch anything- in fact, my friend catches and releases.\\xa0

\\xa0

And poetry- specifically lyric poetry works the same way.\\xa0 It doesn\\u2019t MEAN ANYTHING really- which I know is a strange thing to say.\\xa0 Unless you want it to. And although that sounds like that would make it unimportant- actually, historically, it has made it very important.\\xa0 Because when when you do find meaning- because you found it, because you participated so to speak in the art of it- you accept it with an uncritical or at least an open mind- even if the idea- presented in another way would turn you off completely.

\\xa0

Let me put it this way- when you say something in a poetic form- and there are several- you can get away with saying anything- things that would be totally socially inappropriate in any other context.\\xa0 Let me give you an quick and dirty example example, -take rap music- which I\\u2019m not trying to disparage- because that\\u2019s not the point- rap artists really are the closest thing we have today to a popular version of lyric poetry, but rap artists have freedom that other people don\\u2019t have to say anything they want with very few social repercussions.\\xa0 There are raps that talk about raping and brutalizing women, drug use and all sorts of \\xa0things no one would ever let you say if you just tried to print them in the paper- but if you say it in poetic form- somehow it flies under the radar.\\xa0 And- I\\u2019m not passing judgement on that.\\xa0 In fact, I\\u2019m saying this is NOT a modern function of poetry.\\xa0 Poetry has always done that.\\xa0 Thomas Hardy, the British novelist, famously commented that if Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition may have left him alone.\\xa0 It\\u2019s really an interesting idea- and something to think about.\\xa0 \\xa0

\\xa0

Well, interesting you should bring that up because rock and roll has worked the exact same way\\u2026.

\\xa0

I don\\u2019t know why that is really- except that we all understand, at least intuitively, that poetry isn\\u2019t meant to communicate things that are necessarily factual or even true- and we don\\u2019t hold it to that standard.\\xa0 It deliberately creates a gap between what the writer says and what the reader hears and so the reader must fill the gap.\\xa0 This buy- in changes the dynamnic of the relationship between reader and listener to reader and participant.\\xa0

\\xa0

Of course the other side of that is that can also say a poem can pretty much mean whatever you want it to- and that\\u2019s okay- there is no other form of communication that works like this.

\\xa0

I heard a lecture once from the famous Scottish poet, Don Patterson, who talked about this very idea. He did this funny thing where he put a line of verse through a computer translating program and translated it from English to antoher language, back to English to a different language, back to English and so forth- and as you can imagine- by the end it was totally different- and why was that the case- well, his point was that meaning in poetry is NOT what the writer says as much as what reader hears- and that is NOT the same thing- not even for a computer- much less for a living human.

\\xa0

What I say, often is not what you hear- every married person knows that!!!\\xa0 But for a lyric poem- And what makes a lyric poem brilliant is when a poet can say something ambiguous enough to where you can find yourself- and your life- in the words- not the poets- it\\u2019s original enough that you can latch on to it- and adaptable enough that the words can be more than what they were to the writer- but not so vague and broad that they can mean anything to anyone and its total nonsense.\\xa0 Does that even make sense?

\\xa0

Yes and back to rock and roll has worked exactly the same way as well\\u2026.talk about that more

\\xa0

Now- that brings us back to Shelley- because what he is most famous for are his lyric poems and I will make the case it\\u2019s because they do exactly what we\\u2019re talking about. And ironically enough, Shelley, although seems to live his life quite selfishly, was not a selfish poet.\\xa0 He didn\\u2019t write about himself hardly at all, less than 10% of his poems are in the first person (which is unusual).\\xa0 His poems are ambiguous enough to not communicate anything really clearly, but clear enough to where when we do the fly-fishing thing and emerse ourselves into the language- we cannot only find our own meaning but we can be charmed by the language, the turn of phrase, the metaphor in and of itself.

\\xa0

Let\\u2019s take a look at this poem Ozymandias- and then we\\u2019ll tackle it,\\xa0 Can you read it for us.

\\xa0

Read the poem.

\\xa0

Okay- are you confused?\\xa0 It\\u2019s a very short poem.\\xa0 In fact, it\\u2019s a sonnet- fourteen lines of rhymed iambic pentameter. \\xa0Sonnets are almost always love poems.\\xa0 So, it\\u2019s a strange form to write in for a poem like this- so why did he do it. Well, reason one Very straightforward reason- he wrote this poem in another writing competition with a friend where the object was to write a poem about Ozymandias.\\xa0 So, that\\u2019s kind of funny.\\xa0\\xa0 But, there\\u2019s another reason- and this is where Poetry turns into fly-fishing and you have to pay attention.

\\xa0

So, if you know something about sonnets- and it\\u2019s okay if you don\\u2019t- there are really two types.\\xa0 The first guy who made them famous is this guy named Petrarch- who wrote 360 something sonnets for this girl named Laura who did love him.\\xa0 Anyway, he made sonnets famous and for hundreds of years people copied his style- all the way til Shakespeare.\\xa0 Now Shakespeare took the sonnet form, the fourteen lines, but he changed it up a bit- he changed the rhyme scheme- but not just the rhyme Petrarch had used the this pattern that the first eight lines would present a problem, and the last six would solve it- well, Shakespeare didn\\u2019t do that.\\xa0 He did this new thing- ababcdcdefefgg- and it was different.\\xa0 The volta- or think of it as like the key to unlock the sonnet came at the end.\\xa0 Now you might say- why do we care.\\xa0

\\xa0

Well, it\\u2019s what makes thinking about these sort of things interesting, if you\\u2019re so inclined- Shelley, who obviously knows both methods of sonnets- in typical- I\\u2019m not your obedient servant- made up his own rhyme scheme- but he didn\\u2019t exactly make a totally different one up- he just combined them.\\xa0

\\xa0

So, what does it mean.\\xa0 Well, we don\\u2019t know.\\xa0 That\\u2019s the thing about poetry- and especially structure- it\\u2019s a bit of a puzzle.\\xa0 Why did he do that is always the question to ask.\\xa0 \\xa0I can tell you this for a fact, the answer is not because he didn\\u2019t know how to rhyme words.\\xa0 He did it for some reason that connects to meaning- structure always supports meaning, and we are suppose t make up in our minds what that reason could possibly be- WE make the meaning.\\xa0 WE collaborate with the author- and that\\u2019s what lyric poetry is all about.\\xa0 So, let\\u2019s do it with this one.\\xa0

\\xa0

Garry, what can see in this poem?

\\xa0

\\xa0

Well, he\\u2019s obviously met a traveler who told him about a statue he\\u2019d seen in the desert that was all broken up.\\xa0 He describes the statue, the face is grumpy and cold and there are words at the bottom that say, \\u2018my name is Ozymandias, king of kings, look on my works, ye mighty and despair.\\xa0

\\xa0

Great- so the first question I have is why the heck is Ozymandias.\\xa0 It\\u2019s the title of the poem- and titles are always important.\\xa0 They give us meaning.

\\xa0

Well, historically, Ozymandias is the Greek name for Rameses the Great, or Ramses the second of Egypt.\\xa0 In Memphis we love this guy because for many years his statue was in front of the biggest landmark in Memphis as you look across the Mississippi river- the Memphis pyramid.\\xa0 Since Bass pro took up residence in the pyramid Rameses has moved to the university of Memphis, but we can still visit him.\\xa0 The real Ramses, not the one here, \\xa0is widely considered to be one of the greatest if not THE greatest of the pharaohs, although a lot of modern scholars think he was the greatest of all propagandists amongst the pharaohs.\\xa0 He definitely stands out as being the most famous even today of all the Pharoahs.\\xa0 He lived to be 96 years old and his reign truly was long, peaceful- for the most part after several important conquests, but very prosperous.\\xa0 Because Yul Brenner played Rameses in the famous movie The Ten Commandments a lot of people associate him with the Exodus story in the Bible as being the pharaoh of the Biblical account, but there\\u2019s no real physical evidence if that\\u2019s true.\\xa0 In fact, it\\u2019s likely not true.

\\xa0

So, we know who Ozymandias was in real life.\\xa0 We\\u2019ve noticed the form of the poem and made note of some oddities in terms of structure, so now it\\u2019s time to reread the whole thing again- this time looking at the details.\\xa0 Again, think of it as a fly-fishing expedition- allow your brain to focus and observe- what do you see.\\xa0 What do you HEAR?\\xa0 Remember, poems are to be read outloud.\\xa0

\\xa0

The first thing I notice is that the whole thing is one long sentence and then three short ones- it\\u2019s hard to break up the first one- so you\\u2019re not supposed to. \\xa0You must read poems not according to the lines, but according to the breaks in the punctuation.\\xa0 \\xa0It\\u2019s to be read a little fast.\\xa0 But it\\u2019s full of commas, there\\u2019s a colon.\\xa0 There\\u2019s an exclamation point- and all of these point out things to us.

\\xa0

Okay, garry- read the first sentence.\\xa0 Do you hear anything?\\xa0 Was there something you noticed in terms of tone- any kinds of attitudes?

\\xa0

Well, when I read it outloud, I first noticed all the s sounds- s-s-s-s- and then I hit these hard c sounds.\\xa0

\\xa0

The next thing I noticed is that at first- the tone seemed to be neutral or apathetic- \\u2018I met a traveler\\u2019- so kind of like- this is not me- this other guy said all this.\\xa0\\xa0

\\xa0

And then the last thing was where I got to the sculptor- I got a little confused as to who he was talking about- whose hand, whose heart- at first I thought he was talking about Ozymandias then I thought \\u2013 no he\\u2019s talking about the artist.\\xa0

\\xa0

Exactly, and did you see the tone shift- the attitude of the artist is not the same attitude as the traveler or even the \\u2018I\\u201d whoever that is.\\xa0 That artist did not Ramses.\\xa0 And I think that\\u2019s what those sounds have to do with- that k-k-k- sound is cacophonous- not a harsh mean sound in English- cold command stands out against all the s sounds.\\xa0 The s sounds like of makes you feel all the sand in your ear and then get land on the harsh cold statue.

\\xa0

And back to what I mean by the reader making meaning- look at all the interpretation I just did.\\xa0 That\\u2019s what goes in MY mind as I read all that.\\xa0 I made up the picture of the desert- I see the mean face.

\\xa0

Okay \\u2013 finish out the rest and then let\\u2019s talk about meaning.

\\xa0

Garry reads the second sentence

Notice anything?

\\xa0

Well, the obvious thing is the tone changes again.\\xa0 It\\u2019s sarcastic.\\xa0 I notice the phrase \\u201cking of kings\\u201d which is a Bible term used for God and Jesus in the Christian New Testament.\\xa0 There\\u2019s the random capital letter of Mighty that isn\\u2019t grammatically correct.\\xa0 There\\u2019s some alliteration boundless and bare then lone and level then sands stretch.

\\xa0

Great- now to make meaning.\\xa0 Clearly he\\u2019s making fun of Ozymandias- he\\u2019s not God- he\\u2019s not the king of kings.\\xa0 He\\u2019s not Mighty- it\\u2019s incorrect to capitalize that word- like it\\u2019s incorrect to capitalize him.\\xa0 Wreck and remains and round also alliterate- btw- because even though they are not side by side to each other- they are close enough to where you ear catches the r sounds and puts them together.\\xa0 I think that\\u2019s important because Ramses is a round wreck!!!\\xa0 Boundless and bare- highlight the emptiness not just of the landscape but of the statue.\\xa0 Lone and level as well as sands and stretch also support this same idea- like it\\u2019s saying it three times.\\xa0 He really wants you to know this guy is out in a vast sea of nothing and is a total nothing.

\\xa0

So, what might be the theme?

\\xa0

Well, it\\u2019s obvious that he\\u2019s criticizing Ozymandias, so I guess we can say he\\u2019s criticizing all rulers who think they are so powerful.\\xa0 If Even Rameses the great can be a nothing in the desert- how much more for lesser rulers.

\\xa0

I think so too.\\xa0 And let\\u2019s go back to the form- this is in the form of a sonnet- which is a love form.\\xa0 Obviously, Ozymandias loves Ozymandias- but maybe that is all who loved him.\\xa0 The artist doesn\\u2019t seem to.\\xa0 And the traveler doesn\\u2019t even seem to know him.

\\xa0

But let\\u2019s take our interpretation to the next level.\\xa0 During Percy Shelley\\u2019s life- and remember, he\\u2019s a political radical- the king on the throne is King George. Garry, give us some history.

\\xa0

Well, I don\\u2019t want to pretend to be an expert on English history.\\xa0 I am way outside of my area of expertise, but as an American history teacher, the first thing that immediately comes to mind is that King George is the king during the revolutionary war with the colonies.\\xa0 He\\u2019s also the king when England is at war with France, which of course, played into the American experience.

\\xa0

Exactly- and I don\\u2019t think we need to get much deeper than that, although I\\u2019m sure we could, but we can easily get the point.\\xa0 Remember, percy is a pacifist.\\xa0 He\\u2019s against violence.\\xa0 And look at King George- trying to conquer the world, sacrificing lots of British young men in the process.\\xa0 So, it\\u2019s easy to see that this poem could be metaphorical- and perhaps an English audience at the time would KNOW that\\u2019s who he\\u2019s talking about.\\xa0 Saying, something like, our king thinks he\\u2019s the KING of KINGs, - he thinks he\\u2019s God, but just like Ramses- he\\u2019s a few years away from being a broken statue in the desert.

\\xa0

And no doubt- of course, this poem could be about any king- any political leader, even a present day leader that you might think is arrogant \\u2013 I suspect there\\u2019s a long list of qualifying individuals from around the globe- depending on what country you live in.

\\xa0

Precisely- and this again- is how poems are personal- WE create meaning.\\xa0 I do want to make one more point before we close out because I think it\\u2019s an important one- in a poem- all things have to fit towards your interpretation- and we are stuck with the unusual strcutue that we can\\u2019t explain.\\xa0 How does that support our interpretation?\\xa0 I think we should take one more look to see if there\\u2019s something else we should focus on= and I think there is=

\\xa0

If you at the 8th line in the poem- which by the way is at the smack dab middle of of the poem we see the word \\u201cmocked\\u201d- and in this case- it\\u2019s interesting because it\\u2019s a pun- a word that has a double meaning.\\xa0 And the reason why it stands out is because it\\u2019s an obvious strange choice- he says \\u201cthe hand that mocked\\u201d- well, an artist making a sculpture traditionally gets his head lobbed off if he deliberately mocks the ruler- so it means Mocks- like make a mock up- make a design- but the more common way of looking at the word mock is to mean- to make fun of- so in a sense- the artist is making fun of the ruler to his face, but the ruler is kind of too stupid or too egocentric to know it.\\xa0 Ramses thought he was being portrayed as strong, but it was a mockery- his lip is wrinked and his face is a sneer- maybe because he\\u2019s throwing a tantrum- and we look down at those kinds of people.

\\xa0

So if you look at the poem in that way- the poem is NOT ONLY about Ozymandias- it\\u2019s about the artist- who got the last word.\\xa0 The Artist\\u2019s impression of Ozymandias outlived Ozymandias himself.\\xa0 The power of art, the power of poetry, the power of the written word always outlives everything- and of course- this brings in the theology that\\u2019s kind of a subtext- back to the king of kings.\\xa0 Of course, we know that Percy was an atheist- he made that clear in college- but we also know he knows his Bible.

\\xa0

In the Christian Bible- the Bible says in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the word WAS GOD- hmmm\\u2026.so here\\u2019s the mockery- and it\\u2019s quite an arrogant statement if you look at it this way, but I think it\\u2019s a fair way- Shelley in a sense is saying- you think you\\u2019re God, you\\u2019re Jesus- you\\u2019re the King of Kings- I\\u2019m more of a god than you- because I make WORDS- and eternity is in the Word- not in the rock and certainly not in any ruler.

\\xa0

Good grief that\\u2019s a lot to get out of 14 lines.

\\xa0

Isn\\u2019t it- and so is the power of lyric poetry.\\xa0 Very often, if you put the work in to study it, it pays out- and think this little poem is a fantastic example of this very thing.

\\xa0

\\xa0

\\xa0

\\xa0

\\xa0

\\xa0

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.