Imagery/Figurative Language

In the poem, Ozymandias, both figurative language and imagery are portrayed to demonstrate the destructive nature of time. Most prominently, imagery of ancient ruins depicted in the poem portray the deterioration caused by time’s ceaseless progression; “Two cast and trunkless legs of stone / stand in the desert. Near them… / Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown  / and wrinkled lip, … Tell that its sculptor well those passions read / Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things.” The statue’s corporeal remnants are illustrated vividly while the language appears to mimic this fragmented state of the statue. The physical wreckage of the statue and the specific word patterns that interrupt the flow of each line are key elements that Shelley uses to establish a representation of destruction. Furthermore, while the words apparently describe a withered and slightly demolished statue, they truly serve to communicate the capacity for time to destroy the glory of the past.  In fully understanding this poem one must analyze the imagery literally and figuratively to grasp the poem’s final conclusion about time.