Comparison of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s and Horace Smith’s ‘Ozymandias’ Poems Anonymous College

Both poems describe a ruined statue of ‘Ozymandias’ in the middle of an Egyptian desert. They both explore the decay of a once ‘great’ man, once a ‘king of kings’. Also, the poems touch on what a wonderful power used to exist and what that has deteriorated into: ‘nothing besides remains’. Although both poems convey the idea of a once ‘mighty city’ (which has dissolved into a ‘shattered visage’), Shelley's sonnet focuses more on how power does not seem to last after death, the great homage has dissipated and all that remains is a ‘colossal wreck’. However, Smith’s poem compares present day London and what someone may look back on in the far distant future… A similar fate may await the people in Great Britain. While Shelley’s poem utilises a framework narrator who recalls having met a ‘traveller from an antique land’; Smith plunges directly into the description and message of his poem. Consequently, Shelley’s sonnet consists of seemingly more important events. This sense of importance stems from the fact that the situation has ingrained itself into the mind of the ‘traveller from an antique land’. To that end, the framework narrator magnifies the significance of Shelley’s message. Furthermore, it elicits a far greater sense of...