Sunday, January 24, 2016

Ozymandias

I POSTED THIS LAST NIGHT ON MY PHONE BUT WHEN I OPENED MY COMPUTER IT JUST GLITCHED AND SAID I POSTED THIS TODAY. THIS IS A LIE AND I HAVE PROOF.

"A Carcass" kind of reminded my of "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley--not because the stories are the same but because of the "memorialization" concept. Baudelaire immortalizes his beloved through the poem itself and the art he created out of death lives on. The "carcass's" spirit and essence live on even though her body is gone. A great statue was built to commemorate Ozymandias, an Egyptian pharaoh, so people would remember all of his power and glory forever and ever. Though the majesty of the monument is crumbling, the art lives on. For example, the "sneer of cold command" and the "shattered visage" remain, reminding viewers of the pharaoh's reputation.

Below is Shelley's poem:

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 ink, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd 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!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I remember last year a big part of the poetry unit was the memorialization of a loved one. Almost every poem we read had some way to immortalize a person. I think it is strange that in "A Carcass," which is about a decomposing body, the author gives eternal life to his loved one. I genuinely always wonder who the lucky lady is. Most of the poets we read never mention the ladies they swoon over. How can the women truly be immortal if we don't know who they are? It's more of the idea of love that is immortal not the lover herself.

Jac said...

I am also very interested in the idea of using poetry to immortalize someone, especially a woman. There will come a day when the beautiful lover will be nothing more than a carcass (note reference) but the poem will continue to thrive. Like the woman's rotting flesh, the poem will continue to nurture readers (intellectually, rather than physically) and continue to do great things even after the lover is dead. The cyclical nature of poetry compliments the cycle of birth, death, rebirth. "Ozymandias" and "A Carcass" both show this circular model.

Sri Korrapati said...

"I POSTED THIS LAST NIGHT ON MY PHONE BUT WHEN I OPENED MY COMPUTER IT JUST GLITCHED AND SAID I POSTED THIS TODAY. THIS IS A LIE AND I HAVE PROOF."

Jack Zheng said...

This is a lie

Jack Zheng said...

"I never worry,
Now that is a lie"
- RHCP