Percy Shelley Poetry - Ozymandias?

Question

I am studying his poetry and since he is a Romantic (looking at nature for imagination and beauty), how does Ozymandias fit into a Romantic poem when there is practically no trace of nature found in the thing.

Maybe I need to go further back...
what are characteristics of Romantic Poetry??

Answer 1

I think it is another aspect of Romanticism: the taste for ruins, and for colossal monuments. It has to do — I think — with the desire to express a form of sublime. Maybe it is the word you should be doing some research on.

Answer 2

One of the aspects of Romanticism had to do with the role of Man in Nature. Ozymandias has to do with the mutability of man. In the middle of nowhere is a head or remnant of a statue that says "I am Ozymandias! Gaze on my kingdom and be in awe of me!" (roughly paraphrased, of course) and yet nothing more remains. Ozymandias and whatever kingdom that may have at one time awed is gone, yet Nature remains.

I used to tell students when I taught swimming that if they thrashed against the water, they would eventually tire, through no fault of the water's. The water is just going to sit there and be water, but the swimmer who, instead of trying to slice into the water with each stroke, slaps the surface with force will eventually tire and go under, no matter how strong they once were.

Same thing

Answer 3

The powerful effect and meaning of the sonnet relates to its mood and tone. And these are achieved by references to nature:
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

And there is this direct ref.:
Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

Characteristics - romantic poetry

http://www.literatureclassics.com/essays/763/
http://www.bluffton.edu/~humanities/art/19c/rom/defn.html

Answer 4

Hi,

Sam, Sorry, but I must a question for Annabella.

To Annabella,
I am really wonder, Would you please answer me ?

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070525133636AATXQIF&r=w&show_comments=true&pa=FZB6NWHjDG3N56z6v_2zVk6loVCpn0b_kA42ZNKN8CP6FUMsmSP27A--&paid=add_comment#openions

Regards