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The
Literary Shelf
Life
After Death
The
poem was written as a bet between a group of literary contemporaries. It
became one of the most renowned poems that ever emerged from the
Romantic era. Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias", tells a short tale of an old
king who believed his empire to be immortal yet nothing remained
hundreds of years later when a traveler passes by the ruins.
Shelley
attempts to suggest that in the grand scheme of the world, only nature
remains immortal. All life and property can not live forever.
The
themes of this poem can be read in a plethora of different ways. Roland
Barthes and Walter Benjamin each have their respective interpretations
of Shelley's masterpiece. While Barthes would comment on the life
inherent in death, the certificate of presence and the restriction of
structure, Benjamin would point out the artifact as a determinant of
history, the fake reality of the stone and the notion of a history of
victors. Both thinkers would shed a new light on the meanings and themes
of Percy Shelley's poem.
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Roland Barthes discusses the taming and capturing aspect of the
photograph in his Camera Lucida. The photograph and the statue in "Ozymandias"
have some very similar traits. Both can be seen as images of the past
that breathe life into the dead. Barthes would suggest that the remains
of the statue are the return of the dead in the form of an object. Since
Barthes seeks death in the photograph, he may also see the people of the
empire that have died in the broken statue of the king. The statue
resurrects the subject inherent in the object through its presence
since the "terrible thing, which is there in every [object, is]
the return of the dead." (Camera Lucida, pg.9) |
Ozymandias of Egypt
by Percy Shelley
I MET a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
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Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
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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.
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The statue then invokes the idea of the
ruler that created the empire, which no longer remains. It has thus
become a "total image, which is to say, death in person" because it is a
replica of the ruler. (Camera Lucida, pg.14) Again, if Barthes sees the
statue the same way he sees the photograph, the statue makes apparent
the things the traveler can not see in real life. It embodies the past,
a time that the traveler can no longer reach. Barthes would suggest that
the life of the ruler can be seen through the statue because the broken
stone represents that time period of his life and great reign.
In addition and in relation to the idea of death, Barthes would propose
that history too could be used in the interpretation of Shelley's poem.
Barthes states that history is a dead object. History can only be alive
through the invocation of something present. Barthes would suggest that
like the photograph, the statue "does not necessarily say what is no
longer, but only for certain what has been." (Camera Lucida, pg.85) The
statue would serve as a reminder of the great king and the
accomplishments he made during his lifetime. Barthes would go on to say
that the destruction of the statue also denotes a second death of the
ruler. A specific artifact, like the photograph or the statue, "is never
distinguished from its referent." (Camera Lucida, pg.5) The idea of the
subject, the ruler in this case, "can not be separated [from the object]
without destroying them both." (Camera Lucida, pg.6) Barthes suggests
that since the idea of the rule and the statue are so inherently
connected, the decay of the stone symbolizes again the death of the
ruler. Once the statue is completely gone to ashes, so will the memory
of the ruler because there will no longer be something to trigger the
past. Therefore, the stone serves as a marker of presence and evidence
of a life that no longer exists.
The structure of the poem itself would provoke a Barthian
interpretation. His remarks on the rigidity of the Japanese Haiku leads
one to believe that some of the same notions could be forwarded to the
English sonnet. Like the Haiku, the sonnet too follows a set of rules
that restrict the composer. The sonnet can also be termed "undevelopable
[because] everything is given" and there is no "desire for or even the
possibility of a rhetorical expansion." (Camera Lucida, pg. 49) There is
no room within the form to grow or expand the thoughts the composer
wishes to express. He must be concise and because of the "intense
immobility [that is] linked to detail." (Camera Lucida, pg.49) Although
Barthes would appreciate the capacity of the poem to hold such enormous
subjects, he would note that the image itself is motionless. Even though
subjects can be related to through the stone, Barthes would say, "the
figures it represents do not move [since]… they do not emerge [because]…
they are fastened down" onto paper. (Camera Lucida, pg.57) The structure
of the poem keeps the images within a confined space. The structure of
the poem and the characteristics of the stone, therefore, work well to
illustrate Barthes point of rigid and constricting space.
Walter Benjamin would have some additional opinions on Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias."
He would begin by comparing the destroyed statue to a museum artifact
that recalls a specific time and space. Benjamin notes that the "unique
existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was
subject throughout the time of its existence." (Illuminations, pg.220)
He would say that the stone brings forth immediate contact to the past
through the limited content of the statue. Benjamin states that the
"history of the great works of art tells us about their antecedents…
[and] their potentially eternal afterlife in succeeding generations."
(Illuminations, pg.71) The stone serves as a reminder of a great king
and his vast empire. The statue would hold the story of the ruler that
it represents for centuries after the ruler as died. In this manner, the
broken statue holds the memory and validates the existence of the ruler
who cannot be alive anymore.
Benjamin would go on to say that the stones left represent a fake
reality. The perception of reality that is generated through the
destroyed statue is completely counterfeit because anything that is a
reproduction can not have pure authenticity. Benjamin asserts that in
objects like the statue, the "quality of the [subjects'] presence is
always depreciated." (Illuminations, pg.221) Since it can not completely
take the onlooker to the time of the statue's full shape, the stones
that are left are escape the "concept of authenticity." (Illuminations,
pg. 220) The reproduction does not completely achieve displacement, but
it does serve a purpose in the society. Benjamin believes this artifact
to be the "desire of contemporary masses to bring things 'closer'
spatially and humanly" that which can no longer be reached.
(Illuminations, pg. 223) He asserts that our tendency to hold onto
things that no longer exist is manifested into reproductions of people
and the times of the past. In this manner, he would say that the statue
and maybe even the empire that no longer exists in the poem were modes
of bringing closer the ruler that died centuries ago.
Benjamin would also be quick to insert his point of history being a
story of the victors. It is with this group that "the adherents of
historicism actually empathize." (Illuminations, pg.256) He firmly
asserts that history is only a time in which the stories of survivors
are told. No one recalls the people who have lost through history. In
terms of Shelley's poem, Benjamin would say that it is no wonder that
the statue that remains is of the king and not of a commoner who did
great deeds. The victorious "manifest themselves in this struggle as
courage, humor, cunning, and fortitude." (Illuminations, pg. 255) He
believes this to be the case because the power of the victors enables
them to make sure that only their story is told. Benjamin suggests that
"the victor invariably benefits the rulers [since]… all rulers are the
heirs of those who conquered them." (Illuminations, pg.256) Benjamin
would say that it is completely natural to find that statue of the king
as opposed to the statue of a commoner because he must have been many
times victorious in his battles to acquire such a vast empire. He would
go on to say that sometimes it should be necessary to track the history
of those who have been forgotten. Benjamin would be interested to know
the workers that crafted the statue and the castles of the empire. He
would note that these figures were also important to the time period.
The history of what has never been seen may serve to be more important
in certain events than the story of the victors. In this manner,
Benjamin would agree that all writing in a sense is of a tropic nature.
In this manner, both Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin would have
specific depictions of Percy Shelley's Ozymandias. It seems that on
certain underlying levels these thinkers have common foundations of
thought although they differ on their views of structuralism. Barthes
and Benjamin would both see the remains of the statue as a reminder of
what can no longer be seen with the naked eye. The notion of death then
is inherent in both their interpretations. Death becomes a process of
life that continues on for generations after an individual has stopped
living.
–
Tanvi
Patel
January 27, 2002
Bibliography
Barthes, Roland. (1981) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. New
York: Hill and Wang.
Benjamin, Walter. (1986) Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books.
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The
Literary Shelf
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