Identify and Explain Key Quotations in Ozymandias

Refer to the poem 'Ozymandias'.

Here's a quick recap of the poem: 

Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley, this poem is about a speaker who meets a traveller, who tells him the story of Ozymandias, an Egyptian king in 1200 B.C.E, whose statue still remains. 

This activity should help you revise some key quotations and help deepen your understanding of the poem. In the following questions, you'll be given a quotation from the poem, and you'll need to identify the poet's meaning behind it.

It may be helpful to write down the quotations as you do this exercise, so you can try and remember them for the future!

Here is the poem for you to refer to in this activity. You can look back at it at any point by clicking on the red help button on the screen.

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: “Two vast 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!’

Nothing besides remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”