Furthermore, sonnets are usually associated with love and harmony, however ironically, the only love here was the self love of Ozymandias. Or else, Shelley was just an inventive and clever poet! The sonnet structure also gives it formality and 'dignity', as does the stately, rhythmic iambic pentameter construction of the lines. Also, Shelley may have wished to imply that Ozymandias would have freed himself from the conventional template, emphasising an assertion of power. "Ozymandias" has a unique rhyme scheme - ababacdcedefef - which mimics decay by gradually modifying the original rhyme structure until it disappears with odd numbers. Shelley chose to give a voice to the 'nobody', often at that time forgotten by literature. The traveller is an ordinary man, yet he is the one who tells the story, not the great king. There is no need for grand statues and an aristocratic class. It is also a comment on humility - or the lack of it. Tet Shelley points out the power of nature, and its ability to destroy, a classic theme of Romanticism. The essence of the message is the hubris of a man who believed that he would be remembered forever. Signed "Glirastes"- meaning roughly a "preaching doormouse"-Shelley's "Ozymandias" has become one of his most famous poems. Far from standing forever, even the most imposing of man's creations wear away. This classic sonnet uses a decaying statue of Ramesses II, also called Ozymandias, as a symbol of the decline in time of personal possessions and power.
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