Once again, I find myself reminded of Mary Wollstonecraft\u2019s work, this time by Percy Shelley\u2019s sonnet \u201cOzymandias.\u201d In Wollstonecraft\u2019s\u00a0A Vindication of the Rights of Woman<\/i>\u00a0she discusses \u201cthe divine right of husbands\u201d and compares it to the \u201cdivine right of kings,\u201d (196). As we discussed in class, this \u201cdivine right of kings\u201d is that they were appointed by God and therefore, to question them is to question God. As a result of this right and unchecked power, kings can have an unjust, authoritarian rule. With this in mind, we can consider Shelley\u2019s sonnet \u201cOzymandias\u201d as a sort of warning of how this \u201cthe divine right of husbands\u201d can go wrong. The traveler in this sonnet paints a picture of this crumbled statue, \u201cHalf sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, \/ And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,\u201d (l. 4-5). The face described in these lines is not one of kindness or compassion, instead the face is stern, cruel, and demanding. The traveler goes on to say, \u201cTell that the sculptor well those passions read \/ Which yet survive (stamped on these lifeless things) \/ The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed\u201d (l. 6-8). This former King not only acted cold towards his people, but he enjoyed ridiculing them. Being a king and therefore having that divine right, King Ozymandias was able to rule with unchecked power and control. The traveler mentions that on the pedestal lies the message, \u201c\u2018My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; \/ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!\u2019\u201d (l. 10-11). The irony here is that there is nothing around the statue, no kingdom, no army, just sand. In a way this shows that the unchecked power King Ozymandias had because of his divine right to rule has its consequences. Instead of a thriving kingdom that remembers him, all that is left of King Ozymandias and his rule is his own decaying statue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Once again, I find myself reminded of Mary Wollstonecraft\u2019s work, this time by Percy Shelley\u2019s sonnet \u201cOzymandias.\u201d In Wollstonecraft\u2019s\u00a0A Vindication of the Rights of Woman\u00a0she discusses \u201cthe divine right of husbands\u201d and compares it to the \u201cdivine right of kings,\u201d (196). As we discussed in class, this \u201cdivine right of kings\u201d is that they were … Continue reading The Divine Right of King Ozymandias<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-2023"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/britishpoetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}