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Ozymandias: 19 Century Photograph of Ramses II Ruin in Egypt

The poem "Ozymandias" describes the ruins of a statue in the desert. It tells of a traveler who saw two enormous stone legs and a shattered face half buried in the sand. The face's expression tells of its sculptor's skill in depicting passions. On a pedestal are the words "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" But around the decaying remains, nothing else remains - only the lone and level sands stretch far away.

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173 views2 pages

Ozymandias: 19 Century Photograph of Ramses II Ruin in Egypt

The poem "Ozymandias" describes the ruins of a statue in the desert. It tells of a traveler who saw two enormous stone legs and a shattered face half buried in the sand. The face's expression tells of its sculptor's skill in depicting passions. On a pedestal are the words "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" But around the decaying remains, nothing else remains - only the lone and level sands stretch far away.

Uploaded by

Nada Saeed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Ozymandias

by Percy Shelley
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!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

19th century photograph of Ramses II ruin in Egypt

Two Monkeys by Brueghel


(trans. from the Polish by Magnus Kryski)
by Wislawa Szymborska

I keep dreaming of my graduation exam:


in a window sit two chained monkeys,
beyond the window floats the sky,
and the sea splashes.
I am taking an exam on the history of mankind:
I stammer and flounder.
One monkey, eyes fixed upon me, listens ironically,
the other seems to be dozing--
and when silence follows a question,
he prompts me
with a soft jingling of the chain.

Pieter Brueghel the Elder


Two Monkeys (1562)
Oil on canvas, 8” x 9”
Dahlem Museum Berlin

More ekphrastic poem examples at http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/


American Gothic
by John Stone

Just outside the frame


there has to be a dog
chickens, cows and hay

and a smokehouse
where a ham in hickory
is also being preserved

Here for all time


the borders of the Gothic window
anticipate the ribs

of the house
the tines of the pitchfork
repeat the triumph

of his overalls
and front and center
the long faces, the sober lips

above the upright spines


of this couple
arrested in the name of art

These two
by now
the sun this high

ought to be
in mortal time
about their businesses

Instead they linger here


within the patient fabric
of the lives they wove

he asking the artist silently


how much longer
and worrying about the crops

she no less concerned about the crops


but more to the point just now
whether she remembered

to turn off the stove.

Grant Wood, American Gothic (1930)


Oil on composition board, 30” x 25”
Art Institute of Chicago

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