Ozymandias: Key Poetic Devices

Assonance and Consonance

Assonance and consonance are sibling concepts, in that they both refer to the repetition of certain sounds in adjacent or nearby words. Assonance specifically refers to the repetition of vowel sounds, whereas consonance refers to the repetition of consonant sounds. In “Ozymandias,” Shelley weaves these techniques together in evocative ways that elevate the language. Consider, for instance, the A and E sounds threaded throughout the first three lines:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . .”

In these same lines, L, T, and S sounds also predominate:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . .”

In particular, notice how the S sounds become dominant as soon as the traveler begins to speak. The use of repeating S sounds, also known as sibilance, has an especially evocative effect in this instance. With these sounds, the speaker seems to conjure the winds that ceaselessly sweep the desert, wearing down the statue and reducing it to sand. This use of sibilance returns in the poem’s final lines (12–14):

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Here again, the traveler uses rustling S sounds to evoke the wind causing statue to disappear into the boundless stretch of sand.

Caesura

The term caesura (say-ZHOO-ruh) refers to any interruption or break that occurs in the middle of a poetic line. Caesura has long history in English poetry. For instance, Anglo-Saxon verse incorporated a strong pause in the precise middle of each line. This use of caesura had a highly formal quality that elevated the poetic language in a way that was appropriate, say, for recounting the exploits of a hero like Beowulf. In later English poetry, however, caesura came to have a less formal quality, with poets often using it simply to reflect the more natural cadences of everyday speech. Shelley plays on both uses of caesura in “Ozymandias,” eleven of whose fourteen lines have one or more pauses. In most cases, the pauses are marked by commas and serve primarily to reflect the cadences of the traveler’s speech. As an example, consider lines 3–7:

Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive

The commas that appear in the middle of the first second, and third lines all function simply to separate clauses in the traveler’s account. Later in the poem, however, caesura has a more resonant and formal effect, as when the traveler quotes the text carved into the crumbling statue’s pedestal (lines 9–11):

And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Compared to the caesura in the first line, the pauses in the second and third lines are more pronounced. Not only do they carry more force, but they also have a more old-fashioned sound that make them seem like historical relics.

Enjambment

Enjambment (en-JAM-ment) refers to instances where one poetic line flows into another without stopping at the end. In “Ozymandias,” Shelley uses enjambment to reflect the passage of time and reference the theme of endurance. For instance, consider lines 2–3, where the traveler’s account begins:

Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . .

Though simply describing a sculpture, the use of enjambment here subtly suggests how these “trunkless legs of stone” have stood the test of time and now remain “stand[ing] in the desert.” A similarly subtle reference to time appears in lines 6–7:

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things

Here again, the traveler’s speech persists across the line break, emphasizing endurance through time. Though the statue has crumbled, the passions represented on the king’s “shattered visage” (line 4) have nonetheless survived through the ages. The poem concludes with an example of enjambment that extends across three lines instead of just two (lines 12–14):

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

In contrast to the previous uses of enjambment, which emphasized persistence through time, this instance of the technique emphasizes the relentlessness of time’s passage. Time itself endures, persistently reducing the “colossal Wreck” to “level sands.”

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