Read the passage from "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles." So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time-with a billowy main - A sun-a shadow of a magnitude. Now, read the passage from "Ozymandias," another poem from the romantic period. 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. How do the passages' themes compare? Both passages have the theme "time erases everything." "Elgin Marbles" has the theme "art outlasts even death," while "Ozymandias" has the theme "death comes to everything." Both passages have the theme "nature is cruel." "Elgin Marbles" has the theme "decay is inevitable," while "Ozymandias" has the theme "fame survives death."

Question

English

Kaya Bridges

27 May, 15:59

Read the passage from "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles." So do these wonders a most dizzy pain, That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude Wasting of old Time-with a billowy main - A sun-a shadow of a magnitude. Now, read the passage from "Ozymandias," another poem from the romantic period. 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. How do the passages' themes compare? Both passages have the theme "time erases everything." "Elgin Marbles" has the theme "art outlasts even death," while "Ozymandias" has the theme "death comes to everything." Both passages have the theme "nature is cruel." "Elgin Marbles" has the theme "decay is inevitable," while "Ozymandias" has the theme "fame survives death."

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Answers (1)

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Bianca Hayden · Answer 1

Both passages have the theme "time erases everything".

Explanation:

The poems "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" by John Keats and "Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley both tells of how time is the ultimate destroyer of anything. All things eventually succumb to the forces of time.

The two excerpts from the poems shows that time is the overall ruler of all things. The "Grecian grandeur" gets wasted in time, while the statue of "Ozymandias, king of kings" also became nothing but "remains, Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away". Both of these passages have the theme that "time erases everything". No matter what or how majestic and grand things may be, time levels them to the same fate and position.