Essay on Ozymandias: Critical Analysis of Poetry – Free Essay Example

In Ozymandias and London shows us that nature is the most powerful thing and that humans can not control it. The statue in Ozymandias shows the importance of human power and how we as humans thing we can dominate nature. This can be portrayed in the quote ‘near them, on the sand half sunk, a shattered visage lies’. Sibilance is used in this section because is shows that we can almost imagine the sight of the statue sinking and it shows to the reader how incredibly strong nature is .This can also be seen in London when the poet says ‘near where the chartered Thames does flow. There is juxtaposition between ‘chartered’ and ‘Flow’ and this shows that the river will flow unconditionally even if a human try to intervened with nature humans will never win The poem London is written iniambic tetrameter which suggest to us that its rethemed ABAB and this creates a tone of consistency and purity. London and Ozymandias show us that nature is powerful and that no matter how hard a human may try they will never defeat it.

In Ozymandias shelly writes about how the city has fallen and how the city must have gone downhill because there is not a sign of any people near or around the statue. In London It tells us about all the poorer people in the city and how they are experiencing a bad time in the money department. But in London the city still lives whereas in Ozymandias the city has fallen and could not be helped. This can be seen in the poem London where Blake states ‘mind forged manacles I hear’ the personification of the manacles shows the reader that the people in the city are forced their minds to stay in the lace they live and make them think that In every sound that they hear they can feel and hear the pain. This quote created the imagery of a old time prisoner walking and his chains clashing against one and other creating the feeling of being trapped in a place they can no longer escape from. The poem Ozymandias is written in sonnet form whereas London is is written in iambic tetrameter. The tone of the two poems are quite sad and low tones because both poems created a feeling of pain and suffering to the reader.

Also, In Ozymandias the sand slips through the hands just like Ozymandias power slips away. In London, the power disappears from the hierarchy as soon as the poem mentions how actually London is not a nice place to be living in. In Ozymandias, the sand gets into every small piece of space which could symbolise or represent how power affects the people and when the statue falls or sinks into the sand it could symbolise the fact that power never dies. Whereas in London Blake talks about how the ‘blood runs down the palace walls’ this can symbolise that the people with the money have blood on their hands and there the most powerful people. The verb ’runs’ shows us that the blood is always on the walls of the palace and that there are always people dying due to the rich instead of the poor. This creates imagery of falling and the purity of the colour red and how it links to Ozymandias because the quote ‘nothing beside remains. round the decay’.

Additionally, the imagery in London that has been created is loud sounds pf pain and sorrow through the city, this can be seen in the quote ‘a mark in every face I meet ‘and ’in every cry of every man’ this created a tone of pain and empathy to the reader because of the pain you can metaphorically hear through the quotes of the poem. Whereas in Ozymandias the imagery of the statue of the sunken king ‘half sunk a shattered visage lies’ this creates a tone of powerlessness and isolation to the reader because the statue of the ‘most powerful’ person has sunk and everyone has forgotten about the ‘king of kings’.

Finally, the rhythm of the two poems the rhythm of London is extremely basic and has repeated sounds and he uses rhythm to keep going over the feeling of sorrow and emptiness in the poem. The rhythm also sows us that the as the poet walks through the streets, he can see the sorrow and the pain in everyone face. Whereas is Ozymandias the rhythm of the poem is in sonnet form and the writer uses this is used because it creates a feeling of enlarging the poem and stretching out the feelings conveyed .