power in ozymandias essay

Ozymandias Summary & Analysis by Percy Bysshe Shelley

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

“Ozymandias” is a sonnet written by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley wrote “Ozymandias” in 1817 as part of a poetry contest with a friend and had it published in The Examiner in 1818 under the pen name Glirastes. The title “Ozymandias” refers to an alternate name of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II. In the poem, Shelley describes a crumbling statue of Ozymandias as a way to portray the transience of political power and to praise art’s ability to preserve the past. Although the poem is a 14-line sonnet, it breaks from the typical sonnet tradition in both its form and rhyme scheme , a tactic that reflects Shelley’s interest in challenging conventions, both political and poetic.

• Read the full text of “Ozymandias”

The Full Text of “Ozymandias”

1 I met a traveller from an antique land,

2 Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

3 Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

4 Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

5 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

6 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

7 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

8 The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

9 And on the pedestal, these words appear:

10 My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

11 Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

12 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

13 Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

14 The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

“Ozymandias” Summary

“ozymandias” themes.

The Transience of Power

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

The Power of Art

Man Versus Nature

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “ozymandias”.

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said

—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . 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, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

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

Lines 12-14

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

“Ozymandias” Symbols

• See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“Ozymandias” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Alliteration

“ozymandias” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Ozymandias”

Rhyme scheme, “ozymandias” speaker, “ozymandias” setting, literary and historical context of “ozymandias”, more “ozymandias” resources, external resources.

British Library's "Introduction to Ozymandias" — The British Library has a short introduction to "Ozymandias" that includes excerpts of potential sources for the poem, historical information about Ramses II (Ozymandias), as well as details about Shelley's radical politics.

Draft of "Ozymandias" — The Bodleian Library at Oxford University digitized and transcribed an early draft of "Ozymandias" from 1817 and made it available online. 

"Ozymandias": Original Printing — Shelley first published "Ozymandias" in The Examiner in 1818, under the name "Glirastes." This is a scan of the first edition printing.

British Museum: The Younger Memnon — This website shows the statue of Ramses II (Ozymandias), the discovery of which may have inspired Shelley's poem.

Breaking Bad and Ozymandias — The tv show Breaking Bad featured the poem "Ozymandias" in a trailer for the final season. The BBC explains why and embeds the trailer in the webpage. 

LitCharts on Other Poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley

England in 1819

Love’s Philosophy

Music, When Soft Voices Die

Ode to the West Wind

Song to the Men of England

Stanzas Written in Dejection, Near Naples

The Question

To a Skylark

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley: Decay of Political Power Essay

Introduction.

The poem Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelly, is a fascinating examination of a decaying statue that resonates a central principle: history marches forward and no man can stop it. It is through various literary techniques that Shelly’s belief — art and language outlast politics — shines through. As the poem creates the mysterious sculpture found in “an antique land” and subsequently destroys it, the reader experiences a sense of ironic loss that almost hedges into hopelessness. Shelly’s poem Ozymandias effectively communicates that political power is not everlasting and even the most feared of leaders cannot halt the passage of time through its use of irony, alliteration, and metaphor.

Shelly’s main literary device in Ozymandias is his use of irony to emphasize the decay of political power at the hands of time. Ironically, Ozymandias’ statue bears a “wrinkled lip” and “sneer of cold command”, features that indicate a powerful and foreboding king, but the statue itself is falling apart. Even the inscription declaring that people should “look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!” is ironic; the reign would no longer strike fear in anyone for it had crumbled many years ago. Shelly examines the statue, constructing an image of the king and his rule only to rip it apart in the latter half of the poem by pointing out that there was very little left of even the statue, just as there is nothing left of Ozymandias’ reign. This sense of irony, that a king who was so feared that his people suffered by “the hand that mocked them…” lost his kingdom and life to the sands of history, which eventually overtake all men, runs deeply in Shelly’s Ozymandias.

Shelly uses alliteration frequently in Ozymandias to draw attention to certain images throughout the poem. The use of alliteration gives the poem a rhythm and flow in addition to illuminating the importance of certain lines. The letter ‘s’ in particular is repeated on three separate alliterative occasions. At the beginning of the poem, Shelly describes where the traveler found the statue, “…on the sand, [h]alf sunk, a shattered…”. This draws the reader’s attention to the hidden, already destroyed image of the statue; it is not proudly displayed anymore, it is buried and hidden and alone. The ‘s’ alliteration continues as Shelly describes the sneer and “cold command” that “…yet survive, stamped on…” the statue’s pedestal. This particular point is alliterated not once but twice because it is, simply, the entire point of the poem. Shelly uses “sneer”, “survive”, and “stamped” to reiterate the ‘s’ sound as well as “cold command” within the same sentence to emphasize that art lives on, the sculptor’s work survived, even though Ozymandias is long dead and his period of rule long since over. Finally, Shelly says that “the lone and level sands stretch far away” at the end of the poem, giving the illusion of never-ending space that stretches forever; history goes forever, no one can stop it. Through the use of alliteration, Shelly commands his reader’s attention to the central theme of his poem; no political power is strong enough to resist the decay of time.

The decaying statue in Ozymandias is a metaphor for the decay of political power. Shelly effectively utilizes this metaphor throughout the poem to emphasize that political power is not ever-lasting. Art, however, is eternal and despite the march of time, the statue remains as evidence of what was and what has been lost. The broken statue itself is a metaphor of a ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ sentiment. Shelly describes the statue, the king, the rule, and even the people under Ozymandias, but in the latter half of the poem, the statue is nothing but a “colossal wreck”. “Nothing beside remains”, save for the inscription and the sneer on the statue’s ancient face. Ozymandias is lost and his kingdom gone. He is even further removed from the reader because Shelly uses the narrator as a person relaying a story he heard from yet someone else. Not only is the reign of the king over, not only is his statue a decaying mess, but he is not even directly known to the author; Ozymandias is so far removed from history, he may as well not even exist. But the statue heralded a much-feared, strong king from a bygone era, illustrating Shelly’s metaphor that encompasses the entire poem. The lost king Ozymandias could not hold onto his power, but the sculptor’s statue lasted throughout the ages.

The poem Ozymandias is an incredible illustration of how nothing can last forever; no man can hold onto absolute power for all time. Everyone who lives also dies, every era and every kingdom will eventually dissolve or morph into something different. Art, however, carries forward forever, even if it is a “colossal wreck” by the time it is rediscovered. Through Shelly’s use of irony, alliteration, and metaphor, the reader experiences a dramatic sense of haunting reality: everything ends and people are powerless to stop it.

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General Education

With its heavy irony and iconic line, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" "Ozymandias" is one of the most famous poems of the Romantic era. It was written by Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1817 and eventually became his most famous work. The poem describes the half-buried remnants of a statue of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II and contrasts the pharaoh's proud words with his ruined likeness.

In this guide, we give the background on how "Ozymandias" was created, explain the key Ozymandias meaning, and discuss the poetic devices used in this poem. By the end of this article, you'll have a complete understanding of "Ozymandias."

Ozymandias Poem: Full Text

Below is the complete text of Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem "Ozymandias."

How Was "Ozymandias" Created?

There are actually two Ozymandias poems, and they were written as part of a friendly writing competition. The poet Horace Smith spent the end of 1817 with Percy Shelley and his wife Mary Shelley (the author of Frankenstein ). During this time, Percy Shelley and Smith challenged each other to a poetry competition. The Shelleys moved in literary circles, and they and their friends would often challenge each other to writing competitions, so this wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

For this competition, Shelley and Smith wrote about the Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses II ("Ozymandias" is the Greek name for Ramesses II). Earlier in 1817, it was announced that archaeologists had discovered the remains of a statue of Ramesses II and were sending the fragments to the British Museum. This may have been the inspiration behind the theme of the competition. Ancient Egypt in general was also very much in vogue among the British upper classes, and many of Shelley's contemporaries took a great interest in the period and any new archaeological discoveries in Egypt.

In writing his poem, Shelley was highly influenced by ancient Greek writings on Egypt, particularly those of a historian named Diodorus Siculus. In his Bibliotheca historica , Diodorus states that the following phrase was inscribed at the base of a statue of Ramesses II: "King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work." Diodorus is the "traveler from an antique land" Shelley refers to in the poem's opening line.

Shelley's poem was published under the pen name "Glirastes" on January 11, 1818, in the weekly paper The Examiner. (Smith's poem was published in the same paper several weeks later). Shelley later republished the poem in 1819 in his collection Rosalind and Helen . Although it didn't receive much attention when it was published, "Ozymandias" eventually became Shelley's most well-known work, and the phrase "look on my works, ye mighty, and despair" is often referenced in popular culture.

What Is the Meaning Behind "Ozymandias"?

What message was Shelley trying to convey with the poem Ozymandias? The major theme behind "Ozymandias" is that all power is temporary, no matter how prideful or tyrannical a ruler is.

Ramesses II was one of the ancient world's most powerful rulers. He reigned as pharaoh for 66 years, led the Egyptians to numerous military victories, built massive monuments and temples, and accumulated huge stores of wealth. He eventually became known as Ramesses the Great and was revered for centuries after his death.

Throughout the poem, Ramesses' pride is evident, from the boastful inscription where he declares himself a "king of kings" to the "sneer of cold command" on his statue. However, "Ozymandias" makes it clear that every person, even the most powerful person in the land, will eventually be brought low, their name nearly forgotten and monuments to their power becoming buried in the sand.

Although the poem only discusses Ozymandias, it implies that all rulers, dynasties, and political regimes will eventually crumble as well, as nothing can withstand time forever. At the time the poem was written, Napoleon had recently fallen from power and was living in exile, after years of ruling and invading much of Europe. His fate is not unlike Ozymandias'. When Ozymandias orders "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" he meant to cause his rivals despair over his incredible power, but he may have only caused them despair when they realized their ignominious end was as inevitable as his.

The fallen statue of Ramesses II in Luxor, Egypt that Shelley is said to have based his poem on

What Poetic Devices Does "Ozymandias" Include?

For a fairly short poem, "Ozymandias" is full of poetic devices . A poetic device is a linguistic tool that a poet can use to help convey their message, as well as make the poem more interesting to read or hear. In this section we discuss the key poetic devices in the Ozymandias poem.

"Ozymandias" is a sonnet, which is a type of poetic structure. All sonnets, including "Ozymandias" are fourteen lines long and written in iambic pentameter. The iambic pentameter sounds more natural than many other rhythms, but it still has a purposeful enough rhythm to easily differentiate it from normal speech (even in the 1800s no one would naturally speak the way "Ozymandias" was written).

Contrary to many other sonnets though, "Ozymandias" has an unusual rhyming scheme, following the pattern ABABA CDCEDEFE. Most sonnets follow the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA and CDECDE or CDCDCD.

Sonnets have been a standard poetry format for a long time—Shakespeare famously wrote sonnets—and it would have been an obvious choice for Shelley and Smith to use for their competition since sonnets have a set structure but still allow the poet a great deal of freedom within that structure.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of a sound or letter at the beginning of multiple words in a sentence or paragraph. There are several instances of alliteration in "Ozymandias" including the phrases "cold command" and " boundless and bare."

The repetition in alliteration often makes a poem sound more interesting and pleasant, and it can also create a soothing rhythm in contrast to the tension caused by enjambment (see below).

An apostrophe is a poetic device where the writer addresses an exclamation to a person or thing that isn't present. In "Ozymandias" the apostrophe occurs in the inscription on the statue's pedestal: "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!" This isn't being spoken to anyone in particular, just whoever happens to come across the statue.

Enjambment is the continuation of a sentence beyond a line break, couplet, or stanza without an expected pause.

In "Ozymandias" there are numerous examples of enjambment, including "Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone/Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand," and "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay/Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare" In both examples, the line break occurs in the middle of a sentence.

Enjambment is a way for the poet to build action and tension within a poem. The tension comes from the fact that the poet's thought isn't finished at the end of a sentence. Each line with enjambment is a mini-cliffhanger, which makes the reader want to keep reading to learn what happens next. Enjambment can also create drama, especially when the following line isn't what the reader expected it to be.

Irony is when tone or exaggeration is used to convey a meaning opposite to what's being literally said. The Ozymandias meaning is full of irony. In the poem, Shelley contrasts Ozymandias' boastful words of power in with the image of his ruined statue lying broken and forgotten in the sand. Ozymandias might have been powerful when he ordered those words written, but that power is now long gone, and his boasts now seem slightly silly in the present time.

What's Next?

Are you also learning about Edgar Allen Poe's " The Raven " in class? Read our guide to learn all about this famous poem, including its meaning, literary devices, and what that raven actually stands for.

There are many poetic devices that are crucial to know, and you can become an expert on them by checking out our guide on the 20 most important poetic devices.

Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," is another extremely famous poem. Our article will give you some in-depth information on the meaning of Dylan Thomas' poem , including how to analyze it!

Christine graduated from Michigan State University with degrees in Environmental Biology and Geography and received her Master's from Duke University. In high school she scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and was named a National Merit Finalist. She has taught English and biology in several countries.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of Shelley’s Ozymandias

Analysis of Shelley’s Ozymandias

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on April 7, 2021 • ( 0 )

Written sometime in late 1817 and published on January 11, 1818 in Leigh Hunt’s Examiner, “Ozymandias” is a poem that bears the Greek name for the Egyptian Pharaoh, Ramses II (13th century B.C.). In addition to his wars with the Hittites and Libyans, Ramses is known for his extensive building projects, as well as the many colossal statues of him throughout Egypt. His reign marked the height of Egypt’s imperial power. According to Diodorus Siculus, a Greek historian of the 1st century B.C., the largest statue in Egypt bore the inscription, “I am Ozymandias, king of kings; if anyone wishes to know what I am and where I lie, let him surpass me in some of my exploits.” A controversy continues today regarding the 19th-century’s unquestioning reliance on the identity of Diodorus’s sources; few of his sources survive outside his own work, making it difficult to ascertain who or what is being quoted verbatim.

The 19th century developed a great interest in the ancient Egyptian culture, and that interest was the beginning of modern Egyptology. In the 1820s, Jean-François Champollion deciphered the Egyptian hieroglyphic writing on the newly discovered Rosetta Stone. Prior to Champollion’s discovery, the historical events of the early 19th century helped to awaken an interest in this ancient culture. When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, he was accompanied by a group of 150 scientists and artists who came along to survey the newly conquered territory. Furthermore, in 1806 Mohammed Ali, a soldier of fortune, installed himself as pasha (a man of great rank) of Egypt, and during his long reign, he encouraged artistic competition between the French and English, resulting in a flood of Egypt artifacts in both Europe and America.

Shelley’s own interest in Egyptology is manifested in many of his poems, such as Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude, where the young poet, who has gone in search of the origin of things, journeys to Egypt and Abyssinia, to the origin of writing. “His wander step, / Obedient to high thoughts, has visited / The awful ruins of the days of old: . . . Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe’er of strange / Sculptured on alabaster obelisk, . . . or mutilated sphinx.

Ancient Egyptian culture was a civilization obsessed with death and personal survival, an obsession indicated by its foremost occupation—the construction of inscribed funerary monuments— pyramids, tombs, obelisks, stelae, and sarcophagi. It was a culture obsessed with time, and its fascination with the afterlife influenced all its earthly work and effort. These themes are prominent in “Ozymandias.” It is simultaneously a poem concerned with poetic effort and the anxiety of whether that effort will be remembered.

The most significant key to understanding Shelley’s agenda in “Ozymandias” resides in the verb “to mock.” To mock most frequently means to treat an object, person, or idea with contempt or ridicule. It also means to imitate that object, usually for derision, or to produce an insincere or counterfeit version of the original object. Interestingly, a rather obscure meaning of the word “mock,” the origin of which is unknown, identifies the word with a stump and root of a tree, or refers to a large stick of wood, especially that burned at Christmas. Thus, Shelley’s play on the word “mock” makes this poem, in one sense, a pun—a rhetorical device that depends on similarity of sound for a multiplicity of meaning. This device, like the subject matter of the poem, was familiar to the classical world and much discussed and written about in its rhetorical treatises. As will be seen, “Ozymandias” utilizes puns to explore a variety of issues concerning the ravages of time and the effacement of memory.

Beginning with the first line, the narrating voice creates doubt as to the chronological time in which his poem is set, stating that “I met a traveller from an antique land.” The word antique creates the first ambiguity in the poem. Is the traveler a tourist living in the 19th century who merely refers to Egypt as the ancient world or is there some time warp in which the narrator meets with an actual inhabitant of antiquity? At the very least, we are left a bit disconcerted as to the temporal location of this poem.

In the next two lines, we see Shelley’s adept and very oblique application of a “mock” as a stump of a tree, when the strange visitor reports that “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / Stand in the desert.” At the same time, Shelley also introduces us to the multifaceted symbols and images he will employ to convey the erosive effects of time. First, time has “amputated” this monument so that its representational value, a sculpture of a former ruler of this very same country, is seriously curtailed. Second, this sculpture is to be found in the desert, an arid and lifeless terrain, and as it is made of stone, it is also very much of the desert as well, its stony composition reminding us that its physicality is inextricably linked to the same disintegrative processes that cause rocks to turn into silt. And finally, we are given additional details of this “amputation,” in a series of disturbing images: “Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command.” Indeed, time has now grown violent, determined to annihilate any physical evidence that this person ever lived.

Most interesting is Shelley’s use of the word “visage” in reference to Ozymandias’s face, a word derived from the Latin visus, meaning sight or appearance, and in English defined not only as the front part of the face, but an aspect of the person’s true character and emotions. Through the multiple meanings of this word, Shelley introduces the theme of a former leader whose monument has fallen into ruin and disgrace, one who was arrogant, mean-spirited, and tyrannical. These images of Ramses II are all appropriate. He was a king of nonroyal origin, appointed at a very young age by his father Seti I; his reign was the last peak of Egyptian imperialism, an important fact for the radical Shelley, who opposed all forms of political tyranny and aggrandizement, most notably Napoleon’s political agenda.

Finally, Shelley uses one further meaning of the word visage, referring to something done merely for outward show, a falsehood of sorts. This indicates two important points: First, as the traveler tells us, the ancient sculptor did a brilliant job reading Ramses II (“its sculptor well those passions read / Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, / The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed”). Thus, art remains the repository of truth; despite Ramses’ obsessions with public works to celebrate his achievements, the artist captured his real character. Second, though the statue is in a state of ruin, the truth nevertheless remains with a tenacity that is as irrepressible as the one it represents, and this truth will indeed withstand all attempts to obliterate it. (“And on the pedestal, these words appear: / My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, / Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains.”)

And so Ozymandias’s decaying statue, exposed to the elements and to human scrutiny, is left “boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch[ing] far away.” This very same sand, commonly used to measure time, has curiously lost that ability in a poem that is ultimately timeless. Indeed, for a powerful political leader, such as Ramses II and Napoleon, what is recorded and memorialized in the chronicles of history are the deeds they performed and the character traits that motivated those actions.

Further Reading Allot, Miriam, ed. Essays on Shelley. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1982. Baker, Carols. Shelley’s Major Poetry. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1948. Curran, Stuart. Poetic Form and British Romanticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Duerksen, Ronald. Shelley’s Poetry of Involvement. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988. Hall, Jean. The Transforming Image: A Study of Shelley’s Major Poetry. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980. Schulze, E. J. Shelley’s Theory of Poetry: A Reappraisal. The Hague: Mouton, 1966. Sperry, Stuart. Shelley’s Major Verse: The Narrative and Dramatic Poetry. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988. Source: Harold, Bloom, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Modern Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishers. 1985.

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What I love… Education based blog by @susansenglish

Why I love…Comparing Ozymandias and London

I tasked my tutoring group with pre-annotating Ozymandias and London to come to the group with some ideas about the poem.

When they arrived, we went through Paper 2 (Language) Q4 and focused on the top tips for this question and in a few weeks time, I’ll test these top tips with them when they complete a Paper 2. In the meantime, I wrote an introduction to go through with them and a first paragraph to show them a higher level introduction which stuck to the basics that we discussed in last weeks session and added to these with a bit of writers’ intentions and context (linking both the poems).

These are the ideas that we gathered and what we discussed in relation to context.

The question was:

How is power presented in Ozymandias and one other poem from the anthology? (we used London).

Then, I planned as I would ask them to:

Ozymandias and London links 

• Entitlement/arrogance
• Ordinary suffer
• Meaningless in long term
• Ramoses II – Ozymandias
• Romantic – Shelley
• Innocence vs Experience
• Power (politics) anti
• Comp (although I can’t remember what I meant by this as it was an abbreviation of my thought process) I used this as an example of making notes clear!

I explained that I’d noticed context embedding missing in almost all the Anthology essays that I’d marked and that this suggested when planning making a quick note of this would serve as a good reminder for them to include this in their essays.

As you can see from the picture I annotated the introduction to exemplify what I was trying to show them.

The full essay is below:

Ozymandias by Blake and London by Shelley are both poems which reveal the corrupting influence of power. Both poets reflect on power as something that creates a sense of entitlement or arrogance, as a way to make those lacking in power suffer and to show that ultimately power and status is meaningless in the long term as all power is equalised by death. The poets Blake and Shelley appear to want to show through their depictions of people, how power in the wrong hands is used for evil, therefore both create a social commentary relating to hierarchical power structures and their inherent unfairness.

It appears clear that power when gained leads to a sense of entitlement that causes arrogance and disdain towards lower class people. In Ozymandias Shelley makes this distinction through the ruin of the statue which immortalises the ruler in stone. The plosives in “sneer of cold command” with the assonant sounds create an impression of an unking, uncaring and callous leader, who disrespects and disregards his subjects thoughts and feelings due to his own belief in his superior nature. Furthermore, the sculptor “well those passions read” as stated by the narrator (who was told the story second hand) creates a tone of sarcasm about the great ruler. The story was based on Ramoses II whose likeness was sculpted on a huge stone statue, which would have been very difficult to create and would have caused great pain and suffering to those who were commanded to create the statue. Interestingly, in Blake’s poem the ruling classes are criticised from afar creating a sense of distance that rulers had from their subjects. For example, Blake, when wandering at night through the streets of London was struck by the poverty and suffering of the poor and commented on this through repetition of “Marks on every face I meet, marks of weakness, marks of woe” which implies that the people are suffering intensely and that they feel sorrowful and impotent. The use of “marks” indicates that this is written all over the faces of the people of London and suggests that this suffering is widespread. The entitlement of the ruling classes can be seen in this is through the disregard for the poor. When “blood runs down the palace walls” the insinuation is that the monarchy are to blame for more suffering, that of the soldiers, and that they are complicit in this suffering. The ‘blood’ is being shed and as a result of decisions that the Government and Monarchy have made innocent men are dying. Perhaps, both poets feel resentment towards the rulers who have not used their power to help people but instead allowed them to suffer while they take what they like and live lives that are privileged. This is exemplified in “King of Kings” with the arrogant assumption that Ozymandias is better than and more in control of others than anyone else. The repetition makes a god-like assertion of himself and shows the sense of entitlement that the ruler had.

The  people in the poems suffer through their lack of power. This is evident in “the hand that mocked them, the heart that fed;” with the caesura creating impact and making us pause to realise how callous and cruel the ruler is towards the ordinary people. “Mocked” has connotations of belittling, being rude towards others and ridiculing which shows how they suffer at the “hand (s)” of their ruler, who is supposed to look after his subjects. Instead he gets them to do hard labour in order to create an ostentatious symbol of his power, through the size of the statue “two vast and trunkless legs of stone”. The use of the adjective “vast” creates the idea of the immense size of the legs. Although, the intention was to create something to immortalise the ruler, the statue is ruined which infers that power is not something that can be held onto and how you behave towards others is more important than creating a symbol of your power. Shelley is commenting on the unfairness of political systems in the poem and is showing his disdain for organised rule, while Blake is also commenting on the corrupt nature of politicians, the monarch and organised societal structures in London, because the cause great suffering to all. Repetition is again used by Blake to reinforce the great suffering of all mankind in “In every cry of every man…” with the use of “every” reinforcing the widespread nature of the sorrow that is felt by all members of society. “Man” is used as a collective noun to encompass all humanity and Blake further reinforces this bleak outlook on mankind’s suffering in the metaphor he uses at the end of the second stanza. “The mind-forg’d  I hear” with the enjambement leading onto more suffering for the small children who were forced to go up the chimneys to clean them. This is an indication of the poverty and suffering that employers meted out in the Victorian era towards their employees, in this case small children. However, the metaphor indicates that even the people are suffering mentally, are trapped and have no way out. In this way Blake comments on how power creates a trap for every member of society as they have no escape. This entitlement, arrogance and suffering caused through power is in the end pointless.

The pointlessness of trying to maintain power is shown in both poems as nature takes over. The desert sands overtake the statue and it remains ruined and broken and negative description of what remains reinforces this “decay” “colossal wreck” “boundless and bare”. These all show that “Nothing beside remains.” meaning that for all the cruelty and desire to be remembered, actually what is left is a ruin. Death here means that nobody has maintained the great statue that was built to keep the rulers image alive. The idea that death equalises everything is also evident in the final metaphor “blights with plague the marriage hearse” which has an extremely cynical tone and indicates that we all die and that Blake doesn’t believe in the sanctity of marriage. The use of “plague” has biblical connotations and shows that the institute of marriage is flawed and as with the rest of the poem the criticism of institutions is evident here. Blake has shown that we all die and that there is little in the world that is innocent. Maybe, he was influenced by the way the world was changing and not for the better during the industrial revolution. Cottage industry was almost decimated and people had to move to the big cities, like London to find work, meaning that they were overcrowded, conditions were unsanitary and the worst behaviour was on show. Blake evidently disliked this fast paced change and was suspicious of it. Shelley, however doesn’t show suspicion but seems cynical of how power is used, when in the wrong hands.

Both Blake and Shelley comment on the way power corrupts those that have it, how it is used to create and cause suffering for those who are innocent or who least appear to deserve it and show that death and nature in the end are more powerful and important than the social constructs that create powerful leaders.  Perhaps, both poets wanted to show us that their experiences and understanding of the world had been shaped and changed the more they knew and understood about human nature and that when we think about it carefully the natural world that we have around us is most powerful.

Ozymandias vs London

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18 thoughts on “ why i love…comparing ozymandias and london ”.

This is brilliant. Thank you!

Thanks Yamina, I found it really hard to do and then doubted myself, so this is reassuring. Thank you.

Like Liked by 1 person

Ozymandias by Blake and London by Shelley – wrong way around. Shelley wrote Ozymandias.

I know, thanks. I dealt with the mistake, when discussing the poems with the students.

Hello susansenglish can this be used to get a 9 in english please?

Using this example as it is would be plagiarism. You can use it as a model to help your understanding of the poem.

Hello I’m in y11 now my GCSE is coming up and I find it hard to write poems can u help me plz

You need to write about the poems. Have a look at the comparison collection on the blog to help.

Can you recommend some structural devices and explanation on those structural devices by the quotes in the poem.

Sonnet form, use of enjambment and end stopping, the narrative voice.

London is by Blake not Shelley and Ozymandias is by Shelley not Blake

Thanks, I know. I accidently put it round the wrong way when doing the example. All human!

Is there a use of form, structure and language in this essay?

This is great! Thank You!

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i used this in my mocks and got a 9 thanks did it word for word

This isn’t to copy, it is an example! You are supposed to do your own thinking. I wouldn’t recommend in the real exam doing this, as its called plagiarism and if caught you’ll gain no marks.

Really appreciate this. Thanks so much

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AQA “Power and Conflict”: Ozymandias and Kamikaze analysis

The current educational situation is more challenging than ever, with closing schools and exam uncertainties impacting students all over the country. This is especially for GCSE students looking to keep up their essay and study skills, which is why I have moved all lessons online and will be providing as many digital resources, hints and tips as possible over the coming months.

When it comes to poetry, many students find essay structure the hardest part to master. There is really nothing complicated to this though, and if you follow the trusty PEEZAP structure (useful for all essay subjects, not just English), then your analysis will be off to a flying start. I have provided a model example of this structure below – comparing Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland below. But first, what exactly is PEEZAP?

• P – Point (i.e. make your key statement or argument)
• E – Evidence (back this up with a quotation from the text)
• E – Explanation (tell me why this piece of evidence supports your point)
• Z – Zoom (go into more detail, i.e. is there anything else in the text that backs up your argument, or any other way you can develop your point)
• A – Analyse (another quote and some terminology to support your “zoom”)
• P – Perspective (poems, plays and novels are all written by people, for people – how does all this impact the reader, do you have any context to explain the writer’s intentions?)

If you are unfamiliar with these poems, watch the YouTube videos first. Then take a look at the essay below. Be a critical teacher! Do you agree with the PEEZAP markings, and what would you improve – and why?

An Ozymandias reading by Bryan Cranston and BBC Teach analysis by Akala:

There is also a very useful colour-coded reading of Kamikaze , in addition to a Guardian documentary on real-life Kamikaze pilots:

Feeling ready? Let’s go on the structure masterclass…

In Ozymandias, the poet explores ideas about fate and power. Compare this with one other poem of your choice ( Kamikaze ).

Introduction – Introduce your main point (in relation to the question), before focusing on what the poems have in common, as well as differences. Even if they deal with similar themes, no two poems will be exactly the same – so show you’re aware of the nuances.

In Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Kamikaze by Beatrice Garland, both poets present ideas about the inevitability and inescapability of fate. In Ozymandias , Shelley presents the decaying statue of an ancient King as an allegory for the eventual end of power that we are all fated to suffer – most especially the proud. Kamikaze also deals with the futility of trying to avoid one’s fate (and death), but from a much more personal, human perspective. Whilst these two poems differ greatly in their structure, settings and imagery, both ultimately provide the same (somewhat sombre) memorial to human beings inevitably and powerlessly subject to the vicissitudes of fate and their own mortality.

PEEZAP Paragraph 1

PEEZAP Paragraph 2

Structure – More difficult to follow the PEEZAP structure exactly – but so important to think about how each poem’s rhyme scheme and structure reinforces its central message.

Whilst Garland’s poem is presented in seven regular sestets (with a shift to italics to indicate a change of speaker), there is no overt rhyme scheme. This can be compared with Ozymandias , which also has a regular structure (written in a sonnet form, in iambic pentameter) and an irregular rhyme scheme. For Shelley, the irregular rhyme scheme could be symbolic of the broken statue itself – no longer perfect, and falling apart as the poem progresses. The sonnet form (usually composed as romantic love poems) could serve as a further ironic joke about the ruler’s ill-fated ego – or perhaps offer a more nostalgic, romantic tone of a lost legend. In a similar way, Garland’s poem offers no easy answers to the question posed by the pilot’s fate. Just like the non-existent rhyme scheme, no neat or easily comprehensible solutions are presented– challenging the reader to make their own judgments on events.

Conclusion – This should reflect the points made in the introduction – pointing out the similarities and differences.

In conclusion, both Ozymandias and Kamikaze depict central protagonists attempting (and failing) to escape their own fate. Whilst Ozymandias presents a more ironic description of a ruler sure of his own power and infallibility, Kamikaze presents a more nuanced, personalised description of an individual pilot trying to return home. Both poems explore the attempt to escape our human mortality in one way or another however, and both show characters ultimately drawn back to their very human, very lonely destinies – both fated to be forgotten and ignored in one way or another.

For more essay skills practice, take a look at my previous post on GCSE English terminology . With a combination of good structure, killer analysis and sophisticated terminology – you can’t go wrong. Do get in touch with any questions, and happy essay writing!

More  Power and Conflict  sample poetry essays:

• A comparison of  Exposure  and  Charge of the Light Brigade
• A comparison of  Tissue  and  The Émigrée
• A comparison of  Storm on the Island and The Prelude
• A comparison of London and My Last Duchess

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5 thoughts on “ AQA “Power and Conflict”: Ozymandias and Kamikaze analysis ”

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I just came across the Ozymandias poem and it made me stop and reasses my priorities in life. It’s a powerful piece and this review does both those poems justice. 👏

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Hi Kendi – thank you so much, that’s amazing it’s changed your own thought processes – how powerful. It’s a great and really thought provoking poem isn’t it? Really glad you enjoyed the analysis as well, and thanks for sharing.

Hi there! You helped me massively with my English poetry essay on the power of humans by the unique ideas discussed on this blog post so really, thank you so much! The ideas were unique and perceptive and many of my English teachers believe that Kamikaze and Ozymandias cannot be compared but this has been really insightful. Thank youu ❤

Hi – thank you very much for your message, and I am so glad that you found some of the ideas in the essay useful! All the very best for your studies, and good luck for any upcoming exams! 🙂 Amelia

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Miss Huttlestone's GCSE English

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AQA Power and Conflict Poetry – an example comparative paragraph

Morning all,

In today’s lesson I will give you lots of resources to aid your comparison of two poems in the cluster. For today I have penned an example comparative paragraph on how POWER is depicted in ‘Ozymandias’ and ‘My Last Duchess’. The first two sentences acts as my introduction and ‘concept’ (the BIG IDEA) that all of my paragraphs should refer back to:

Both ‘Ozymandias’’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ depict power as being abused by oppressive figures and therefore as being closely aligned with corruption.

Primarily, In ‘Ozymandias’, Shelley presents power in two different ways: firstly, through how a corrupted leader abuses his power and secondly through how power ultimately won’t last and is transient compared to nature. Shelley illustrates the message that powerful leaders can be arrogant when Ozymandias calls himself the “king of kings”. Here Shelley’s use of plosive alliteration for the sharp “k” sound deliberately reflects the overbearing and oppressive power that Ramesses II had over his people when he became a pharaoh at young age. This phrase is poignant in stressing how arrogant and confident the speaker is about his power because he is stating that he is superior to any other ruler. Further to this, the noun “king” carries regal connotations to demonstrate that people in power like Ozymandias may often believe that they are higher to others. The fact that Ozymandias calls himself a king stresses how much the power has dominated his mentality and his thoughts. Similarly, in ‘My Last Duchess’, it focuses on how a Duke, a powerful figure within the social hierarchy, uses his power to control his duchess and thus how he lets power make him arrogant and possessive. Significantly, there is a sense of arrogance attached to power through Browning’s use of possessive pronouns such as “that’s my last duchess hanging on the wall”. Here however, we see how the Duke has let his power over women absorb him and he has become deluded into thinking that he still has power over his dead duchess. The use of the demonstrative “that” is repeated throughout the poem to add to his aggressive and mocking tone whilst showing that he sees his previous wife as an object or possession to him. Browning could be reflecting the conservative attitudes towards women at that time where women were submissive and subservient to their male counterparts and husbands. This arrogance is further shown when the Duke exclaims that he made the curtain and that he had “drawn it for you”. The way Shelley uses the pronoun “you”, when addressing the envoy, reveals how the Duke is deluded enough to think that he has absolute control over who interacts with his late wife. It’s almost as if the Duke finds it thrilling to restrict who can see her because now she has died he is able to have as much control over her than when she was dead.

Red = my perceptive and clear POINT

Green = my carefully integrated evidence

Blue = zooming in on evidence and analysis

Pink = context integrated where appropriate.

More example comparative paragraphs to follow! Please feel free to add your own in the comments for me to check.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Ozymandias — Shelley’s Romanticism in Ozymandias

Shelley’s Romanticism in Ozymandias

• Categories: Ozymandias

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Published: Dec 12, 2018

Words: 677 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

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Related Essays on Ozymandias

Shelley, P. B. (1818). Ozymandias. The Examiner. Retrieved from doi:10.1353/vp.2015.0032

The concept of impermanence is a familiar theme in the realm of human existence. All living beings undergo the processes of aging and eventual demise, and even the material possessions that humanity employs to enhance life [...]

Percy Shelley’s sonnet “Ozymandias” (1818) is, in many ways, an outlier in his oeuvre: it is short, adhering to the fourteen line length of most traditional sonnets; its precise language, filled with concrete nouns and active [...]

The poems “Ozymandias” by Percy Shelley and “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning are very different. However, they do have something in common – both poems are representations of their power. “Ozymandias” represents power as [...]

‘Ozymandias’ is a poem of Percy Bysshe Shelley. It is written in first person as a second hand account from a traveler and includes an anecdote of someone that the traveler once ‘met’. The poem is a sonnet, also written with [...]

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;/ Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” (10) demands the pedestal of the statue of the previously named ancient ruler. Out of context a casual passerby of the king’s shattered sculpted [...]

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Example A (L7) Grade GCSE / iGCSE Essay: Ozymandias + Power

This essay gives an example of the standard required to achieve an L7 grade (the equivalent of an ‘A’) at GCSE and iGCSE level. The question is taken from a Cambridge (CAIE) style exam format, but it could be applied to a range of different exam boards. 

THE QUESTION:

Write about the way in which Shelley presents power in Ozymandias. (WJEC /Eduqas) 

“Examine the ways in which Shelley explores feelings about power in the poem “Ozymandias”.  (Cambridge / CAIE) 

Note: For AQA, bear in mind that the structure has to be comparative, talking about both poems together and drawing important comparisons or contrasts on the topic. 

Thanks for reading! Find more of our English Literature and Language courses on the links below: 

CAIE IGCSE Poetry 2023-2025 (Songs of Ourselves, Volume 2, Part 4)

CAIE IGCSE Poetry 2023-2025 (Songs of Ourselves, Volume 1, Part 4) 

AQA GCSE Power and Conflict Poetry

In “Ozymandias,” Percy Bysshe Shelley explores the theme of power through the portrayal of a fallen king and his crumbling statue. The poem’s imagery and language convey the transience of human power and the ultimate insignificance of even the most powerful rulers. Through the use of structural devices such as enjambment and imagery, Shelley effectively highlights the fleeting nature of power and the hubris of those who seek to control it.

The first way in which Shelley explores feelings about power in “Ozymandias” is through the description of the statue itself. The statue is described as “two vast and trunkless legs of stone” and “a shattered visage” which suggests that the king, once powerful and imposing, is now reduced to nothing more than a broken and insignificant remnant of his former self. The use of imagery in this description serves to highlight the fleeting nature of power and the eventual downfall of even the greatest rulers. Additionally, the use of enjambment in this line, where the line breaks abruptly between “two vast” and “and trunkless,” adds to the sense of the statue being incomplete and broken, further emphasizing the idea of the king’s power being reduced to nothing.

The second way in which Shelley explores feelings about power in “Ozymandias” is through the use of the inscription on the statue’s base. The inscription, which reads “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”, emphasises the king’s hubris and the futility of his attempts to immortalize himself through his works. The use of imperative language, “Look on my works,” serves to highlight the king’s desire for control and admiration. The repetition of the word “my” further emphasizes the king’s ego and his belief that his power and works belong only to him. The inscription also serves to mock the king’s attempts to control how he will be remembered, as his statue and inscription have been reduced to nothing more than a “colossal wreck” in the desert.

Ted Hughes Poetry Essay Questions

The third way in which Shelley explores feelings about power in “Ozymandias” is through the use of the traveller as the narrator of the poem. The traveller is able to reflect on the statue and the inscription, and through his observations, the reader is able to gain a sense of perspective on the king and his reign. The use of a first-person narrator serves to underscore the idea that all power is fleeting and that even the greatest rulers will eventually be forgotten. The traveler’s presence in the poem also serves as a contrast to the king’s hubris, reminding the reader that even the most powerful leaders are ultimately mortal and insignificant.

In “Ozymandias,” Shelley effectively explores feelings about power through the use of imagery, language, and structural devices. Through the portrayal of a fallen king and his crumbling statue, Shelley conveys the transience of human power and the ultimate insignificance of even the most powerful rulers. The use of enjambment, imagery, and first-person narration serve to highlight the fleeting nature of power and the hubris of those who seek to control it. The poem serves as a reminder of the fleeting nature of power and the futility of attempts to immortalize oneself through one’s works.

• No need to mention techniques in the introduction 
• Great register – using precise academic language 
• Good, clear structure – the topic sentences could be stronger for the middle paragraphs, they are a bit repetitive 
• Contextual points would deepen your analysis – consider adding in 1-2 context points in the middle paragraphs 
• A good application of both language devices and structural features 
• A clear understanding of themes and messages – although a little repetitive in your ideas at times 
• Try to avoid saying ‘the word’ and instead say the technique, e.g. ‘the possessive pronoun ‘my’ 
• Clear conclusion, but a little repetitive – try to add something more to your thesis here 

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Book Review: Memoirist Lilly Dancyger’s penetrating essays explore the power of female friendships

This cover image released by Dial Press shows “First Love” by Lilly Dancyger. (Dial Press via AP)

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Who means more to you — your friends or your lovers? In a vivid, thoughtful and nuanced collection of essays, Lilly Dancyger explores the powerful role that female friendships played in her chaotic upbringing marked by her parents’ heroin use and her father’s untimely death when she was only 12.

“First Love: Essays on Friendship” begins with a beautiful paean to her cousin Sabina, who was raped and murdered at age 20 on her way home from a club. As little kids, their older relatives used to call them Snow White and Rose Red after the Grimm’s fairy tale, “two sisters who are not rivals or foils, but simply love each other.”

That simple, uncomplicated love would become the template for a series of subsequent relationships with girls and women that helped her survive her self-destructive adolescence and provided unconditional support as she scrambled to create a new identity as a “hypercompetent” writer, teacher and editor. “It’s true that I’ve never been satisfied with friendships that stay on the surface. That my friends are my family, my truest beloveds, each relationship a world of its own,” she writes in the title essay “First Love.”

The collection stands out not just for its elegant, unadorned writing but also for the way she effortlessly pivots between personal history and spot-on cultural criticism that both comments on and critiques the way that girls and women have been portrayed — and have portrayed themselves — in the media, including on online platforms like Tumblr and Instagram.

For instance, she examines the 1994 Peter Jackson film, “Heavenly Creatures,” based on the true story of two teenage girls who bludgeoned to death one of their mothers. And in the essay “Sad Girls,” about the suicide of a close friend, she analyzes the allure of self-destructive figures like Sylvia Plath and Janis Joplin to a certain type of teen, including herself, who wallows in sadness and wants to make sure “the world knew we were in pain.”

In the last essay, “On Murder Memoirs,” Dancyger considers the runaway popularity of true crime stories as she tries to explain her decision not to attend the trial of the man charged with killing her cousin — even though she was trained as a journalist and wrote a well-regarded book about her late father that relied on investigative reporting. “When I finally sat down to write about Sabina, the story that came out was not about murder at all,” she says. “It was a love story.”

Readers can be thankful that it did.

AP book reviews: https://apnews.com/hub/book-reviews

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Critic’s Pick

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ Review: Hail, Caesar

The latest installment in an excellent series finds mythology turning into power.

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‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ | Anatomy of a Scene

The director wes ball narrates a sequence from his film..

I’m Wes Ball, director of “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.” This is a little sequence in the very beginning of the movie after our trio of apes here, Noa, Soona and Anaya, have just had a little adventure and they’re on their way back to their village, where we get to meet the life of Eagle Clan and where Noa and his family reside, this little isolated existence. And we get to see the way the apes live in this world with their eagles. And and how this ritual of collecting their egg, which they’re going to raise as companions, which is part of the way the Eagle Clan kind of works in their culture. And the goal was really just to set up a world that was wonderful, that was ultimately going to be forever changed when the course of events leads to Noa’s village being attacked for the most part, everything you see here was actually shot with the actors. We shoot it twice, we shoot it once with the actors and all of their little performance things and the camera movement and everything. So we are shooting a regular movie. It just happens to be that these guys are wearing these kind of strange suits along with the cameras and the dots on their face that captures all the performance. And then I have to go in and then re- duplicate those shots without the apes, which is where I choose. Whatever performance I choose now gets dropped into the scene itself. So this isn’t something where we just kind of animate the characters after the fact. We’re actually on location and they’re there in their digital costumes, essentially, acting out everything you see on camera, with the exception of, say, background action, there’s a group of apes in the background playing what we called monkey ball, and just we did that all on stage. So that’s kind of the beauty of the power of this process, is that we can populate this whole scene with hundreds of apes. But we only needed a handful of apes on set. This is Dar, Noa’s mother, who’s a fantastic character, played by Sara Wiseman, who did a great job. “I knew you would climb well.” “He waits.” And this character of Noa here, you kind start to see this relationship that he has with his father, which is an interesting kind of relationship that I imagine a lot of people could relate to. They don’t know quite how to communicate with each other, but there’s obviously still love there. It’s an interesting process where I can take all these different little elements and layer them all together and stack them into this — what you see is the end result here, this little idyllic community.

By Alissa Wilkinson

For a series with a goofy premise — what if talking apes overthrew humanity — the “Planet of the Apes” universe is uncommonly thoughtful, even insightful. If science fiction situates us in a universe that’s just different enough to slip daring questions past our mental barriers, then the “Apes” movies are among the best examples. That very premise, launched with talking actors in ape costumes in the 1968 film, has given storytellers a lot to chew on, contemplating racism, authoritarianism, police brutality and, in later installments, the upending of human society by a brutal, fast-moving virus. (Oops.)

Those later virus-ridden installments, a trilogy released between 2011 and 2017, are among the series’ best, and well worth revisiting. The newest film, “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” picks up exactly where that trilogy left off: with the death of Caesar, the ultrasmart chimpanzee who has led the apes away from what’s left of humanity and into a paradise. (The scene was a direct quotation of the story of Moses leading the Israelites to the Promised Land, but dying before he could set foot there.) The apes honor his memory and vow to keep his teachings, especially the first dictum — “ape not kill ape.” Caesar preached a gospel of peacefulness, loyalty, generosity, nonaggression and care for the earth; unlike the humans, they intend to live in harmony.

The teachings of peaceful prophets, however, tend to be twisted by power-seekers, and apparently this isn’t just a human problem. “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” directed by Wes Ball from a screenplay by Josh Friedman, leaps forward almost immediately by “many generations” (years matter less in this post-human world), and the inevitable has happened. The apes have fractured into tribes, while Caesar has passed from historical figure to mythic one, a figure venerated by some and forgotten by most.

That there even was a Caesar is unknown to Noa (Owen Teague), a young chimpanzee whose father, Koro (Neil Sandilands) is leader of his clan and an avid breeder of birds. That clan has its own laws, mostly having to do with how to treat birds’ nests, and that’s all that Noa and his friends Anaya (Travis Jeffery) and Soona (Lydia Peckham) have known.

But then one day tragedy strikes, in the form of an attack on the clan by the soldiers of Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), the leader of a clan of coastal apes. Noa finds himself alone, searching for his clan, who have been carted away. On his journey Noa meets a human (Freya Allen) who, like the other humans, doesn’t speak.

At this point in the evolution of the virus, mutations have rendered any surviving humanity speechless and dull-witted, living in roving bands and running from predators; to the apes it’s as preposterous to imagine a talking human as a talking ape is to us. But he also meets Raka (Peter Macon), who believes himself to be the last of the faithful followers of Caesar’s peaceful teachings, even wearing Caesar’s diamond-shaped symbol around his neck. (Eagle-eyed viewers will recall that the symbol echoes the shape of the window in the room in which Caesar was raised as a baby.) Noa learns from Raka. And when he finds what he’s looking for, he realizes he has an important job to do.

“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is not quite as transporting as the previous trilogy, perhaps because the apes now act so much like humans that the fruitful dissonance in our minds has mostly been mitigated. It’s simpler to imagine the apes as just stand-in humans when they’re all talking, and thus easier to just imagine you’re watching, say, “The Lion King” or something.

But there’s still a tremendous amount to mull over here, like Proximus Caesar, who borrows the idea of Caesar to prop up his own version of leadership. The real Caesar was undoubtedly strong and brave, but Proximus Caesar has mutated this into swagger and shows of force, an aggression designed to keep his apes in line. He is not brutal, exactly; He is simply insistently powerful and more than a bit of a fascist. Every morning, he greets his subjects by proclaiming that it is a “wonderful day,” and that he is Caesar’s rightful heir, and that they must all work together as one to build their civilization ever stronger.

Visual cues indicate that Proximus Caesar’s kingdom is modeled partly on the Roman Empire, with its colonizing influence and its intention to sweep the riches of the ancient human world — its history, its labor, its technology — into its own coffers. By telling his version of Caesar’s legacy, Proximus Caesar makes the apes believe they are part of some mighty, unstoppable force of history.

But of course, history has a habit of repeating itself, whether it’s ancient Rome or Egypt, and in Proximus Caesar’s proclamations one detects a bit of Ozymandias : Look on his works, ye mighty, and despair! “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” is set in the future, but like a lot of science fiction — “Dune,” for instance, or “Battlestar Galactica,” or Walter Miller’s “A Canticle for Leibowitz” — there’s a knowing sense that all this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

That’s what makes “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” powerful, in the end. It probes how the act of co-opting idealisms and converting them to dogmas has occurred many times over. What’s more, it points directly at the immense danger of romanticizing the past, imagining that if we could only reclaim and reframe and resurrect history, our present problems would be solved. Golden ages were rarely actually golden, but history is littered with leaders who tried to make people believe they were anyhow. It’s a great way to make people do their bidding.

There are some hints near the end of “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” of what might be next for the franchise, should it be fated to continue. But the uneasy fun of the series is we already know what happens, eventually; it was right there in the first movie, and the warning it poses remains bleak.

At the start of the 1968 film, the star Charlton Heston explains, “I can’t help thinking somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man.” You might have expected, from a movie like this, that “better” species would be these apes. But it turns out we might have to keep looking.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Rated PG-13, for scenes of peril and woe and a couple of funny, mild swear words. Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes. In theaters.

Alissa Wilkinson is a Times movie critic. She’s been writing about movies since 2005. More about Alissa Wilkinson

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