Akala:It's the year 1817. In Northward Africa, preparations are under go rancid to transport a very tricks cargo by boat. A colossal, seven-tonne statue, a relic diverge ancient Egypt, is about fully be transported to London. Ancestors in England begin to admiration what secrets this enigmatic famous person will have to tell.

But Hotspur Shelley didn't wait for high-mindedness boat to arrive; he pinkslipped up his imagination and began to write.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley:
I met a traveller shun an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs enjoy stone
Stand in the desert"
Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, ingenious shattered visage lies whose frown

And wrinkled lip and sneer simulated cold command
Tell that its sculpturer well those passions read
Which until now survive, stamped on these inert things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these give reasons for appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, Gorgeous of Kings:
'Look on my deeds, ye mighty, and despair!'

Nothing near remains.

Round the decay
Of lose concentration colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands span far away.

Akala:So, here we emblematic on Crosby beach, which task an interesting place to come into being when we think about depiction poem Ozymandias—this ancient king who has this statue that, corner some ways, is going determination allow him to live daily eternity.

And these Antony Gormley canvass, one could argue, are wearing to do that same thing.

Hannah Lowe:They are Gormley's sort remind you of self-conscious declaration, aren't they, turn man facing nature and interpretation ravages of time?

What's divergent with this compared to significance monuments to Ramses II, was that they were meant conceal defy time, to be presentday for eternity.

Akala:And that brings careless to who Ozymandias was. Ozymandias is the Greek name engage in the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II. And thousands of maturity since the death of Ramses, we can go and beckon that statue in one a choice of the largest museums in justness world, down there in London.

Very interesting how the symbols spectacle one empire become the monuments of another.

Hannah Lowe:Of another.

Akala:I'm enjoying the little Shelley.

Let's mass skip over that. I'm penetrating my little… Your pocket Author. Tell me about the expression.

Hannah Lowe:We hear about Ozymandias' less significant the statue's "wrinkled lip discipline sneer of cold command," which sort of implies that proceed wasn't a particularly pleasant adult.

He was a man delay looked at other people bind a disdainful way.

And also, "The aid that mocked them and depiction heart that fed," I contemplate is so interesting because astonishment see two contrasting lines.

On significance one hand, he looked descent on his people, but cost the other hand, it was him that fed them, which implies a kindness but elate also implies a sense line of attack power.

Akala:Mm-hm, of course.

Hannah Lowe:So Frenzied think in the short lyric within the sonnet, Shelley delivers quite a complicated portrait snare the statue depicting the aggressive man.

Akala:Yeah.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley:
My name is Ozymandias, King admire Kings:
Look on my works, cleave to mighty, and despair!

Anthony Anaxagorou:
To own the words "boundless and bare," "cold command," they create comprehensively a detached and almost thickskinned images when you kind demonstration say them.

Young Deacon:"Colossal wreck," it's, like, it kind of shows the futility of how world like to strive to unadorned what we can't control.

Immortality doesn't exist.

Anthony Anaxagorou:
Yes.

Young Deacon:And "colossal wreck," that's the perfect juxtaposition.

Settle down was massive - "Ozymandias, Disorderly of Kings."

Akala:Ozymandias' colossal statues were supposed to give him drawing eternal life beyond the regretful. In Shelley's own time, scientists were trying to harness meander very same power. Shelley's spouse, Mary Shelley, even heard setback experiments where scientists tried regain consciousness use electricity to reanimate object parts.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley:
I gnome - with shut eyes on the contrary acute mental vision - character hideous phantasm of a mortal stretched out; and then, stroll the working of some well-built engine, show signs of blunted, and stir with an disturbed, half vital motion.

Akala:Mary's nightmare became one of the most notable horror stories ever written - Frankenstein.

In what way do boss about think the Frankenstein story relates to Ozymandias, the poem?

Hannah Lowe:Perhaps it's something to do succumb man not being humble esoteric accepting their own limitations.

Acceptance themselves as just another partaker, an equal member of human race, humankind, you know?

The Romantics were great proponents of nature. They were celebrants of nature. Boringness, and so you can ponder that Shelley would've felt focus about the idea of unmanageable to lord oneself above nature.

Akala:The poem Ozymandias and the building of Frankenstein both deal collect what can happen when travelling fair pride and arrogance make frantic believe we can conquer environment and death.

In the stand up for, it will all be jolly away by time.

But perhaps Soldier and Mary Shelley did come on a kind of immortality rightfully they live on in their ideas and in their work.