Study Material of Ozymandias (Summary and Word Meanings)
Summary of the Poem
The speaker recalls having met a traveller from an ancient land who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of his native country. The traveller said that two vast legs of stone stand without a body and near this, a massive crumbling and broken stone-head lies, which is half sunk in the sand. The statue has a bitter and cruel expression of ‘sneer and cold command’ and this indicates that the sculptor had understood the passions of his subject really well. It was obvious that the statue was of a man who sneered with contempt for those who were weaker than himself, yet fed his people because of something in his heart.
On the pedestal near the face, the traveler reads an inscription in which the ruler Ozymandias tells anyone who might happen to pass by, basically, “Look around and see how awesome I am!” But there is no other evidence of his awesomeness in the vicinity of his giant, broken statue. There is just a lot of sand, as far as the eye can see. The traveler ends his story.
Terms and Meanings from the Poem
• Trunkless - without the upper body
• Visage – face
• Sneer – facial expression of scorn or hostility in which the upper lip may be raised
• Read – interpreted
• Stamped – sculpted
• Mocked - tease or laugh at in a scornful
• Colossal – huge
• Beside – else
View NCERT Solutions of Ozymandias