How does the author use irony to develop the theme of the poem? Cite evidence from the text to support your response.

here is the text:

I met a traveller from an antique1 land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert ... Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage2 lies, whose frown,

[5]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:

[10]'My name is Ozymandias, 3 king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal4 wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Question

English

Yesenia Kim

18 March, 12:40

How does the author use irony to develop the theme of the poem? Cite evidence from the text to support your response.

here is the text:

I met a traveller from an antique1 land

Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert ... Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage2 lies, whose frown,

[5]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:

[10]'My name is Ozymandias, 3 king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal4 wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

+1

Answers (1)

Know the Answer?

Gerald Harmon · Answer 1

In poetry and literature, irony is used as a rhetorical or literary technique to elaborate on what something appears to be on the surface in contrast to what it actually is. In the text, situational irony is used when the traveller speaks of the king's words engraved on the pedestal. Ozymandias, the king, is proud of his amazing works and of all he constructed in his lifetime, believing that would make him mighty for all time. However, nothing remains around the pedestal; the desert's sands have engulfed all of his colossal works. Therefore, it is the contradiction between what is boasted (that is, the amazing constructions) versus what is actually there (a large stretch of sand and decay) that constitutes the irony in the passage.