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Poem: Ozymandias by Shelley
Feb. 20th, 2009 06:03 pmThere are a lot of poems that I was aware of, or knew lines from, before I ever read the full version. Writers like Dorothy L. Sayers, P.G. Wodehouse and even Terry Pratchett use quotes and allusions and sometimes I'll read the source later on and get a nice little ring of recognition.
A lot of the time an association with some other text adds to the liking I have for a poem (though sadly for "The Blessed Damozel" by Rossetti, my prior association is Madeline Bassett and Gussy Fink-Nottle arguing over vegetarianism and while I'm sure the original poem is very lovely and romantic, I now can't take it at all seriously).
In the case of "Ozymandias", I knew a few lines of it years before I even realised it was a poem. A character in (I'm pretty sure) the Tripods trilogy by John Christopher quotes the famous declaration as part of his fake mad ramblings. The lines were memorable enough to stick and eventually I read the full poem and went "aha".
( Ozymandias )
A lot of the time an association with some other text adds to the liking I have for a poem (though sadly for "The Blessed Damozel" by Rossetti, my prior association is Madeline Bassett and Gussy Fink-Nottle arguing over vegetarianism and while I'm sure the original poem is very lovely and romantic, I now can't take it at all seriously).
In the case of "Ozymandias", I knew a few lines of it years before I even realised it was a poem. A character in (I'm pretty sure) the Tripods trilogy by John Christopher quotes the famous declaration as part of his fake mad ramblings. The lines were memorable enough to stick and eventually I read the full poem and went "aha".
( Ozymandias )
