"Ozymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

A reading of Shelley's sonnet which illustrates that "All things sublunary are subject to change" (Dryden)

Here's Vincent Price's reading
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njdLBzGPCZw
Pronunciation: In my opinion the accent should be on the next to last syllable, as in Tutankhamen or Amenhotep - otherwise the line is awkward and doesn't scan.

Shelley's friend Horace Smith also wrote a poem of the same name. You can find it ehre:
http://www.potw.org/archive/potw192.html

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Ozymandias
• Shelley
• desert
• Egypt
• poem
• poetry

[yerbadger]

Listen to the Vincent Price reading. Not many people have, and it is the best I have found yet. This reading attempts to capture the sombre nature of the poem, and comes closer than say, Ben Kingsley's sloppy 'UBS' reading, which is pefunctory and rushed. (Shame, great actor). But no one does sombre like Vincent Price, and it is really worth the effort. Perhaps poetry is like music; once the writers are dead, no one quite knows how they thought is shold have sounded.

[SpokenVerse]

@yerbadger One of the first readings I posted on YouTube made with a desktop microphone and low quality mp3 file. How these old recordings return to haunt me. I must do it again.

Vincent's studio recording is much better. I've put a link to it in the notes.

[DwayneHoover94]

Ozymandias is normally pronounced with four syllables in English, but to fit the iambic pentameter of the sonnet it has to be pronounced in three: o-zy-MANdias, not o-z-man-DIAS as the reader did.

Just saying.

[SpokenVerse]

@DwayneHoover94 I agree that it is the convention to promounce it Ozy-MAN-di-as - and I admitted that my pronunciation was idiosyncratic in the notes. I don't think it suits the iambic pentameter said that way - it seems unlikely that is what Shelley intended. Look:

my NAME is OZY-man-DI-as KING of KINGS

[fatmaccam]

ozymandias was the greek name for pharaoh rameses II. he was famous for his monumental temples and buildings. (but maybe you already know that.) one aspect of the poem is certainly (though i´m no expert!) the ephemeral nature of life, and what becomes of man´s triumphs and monuments with time and after death. have a look at one or two of the animated versions of this on yt: they might give you a more visual idea.

[yerbadger]

@SpokenVerse I thought your reading was pretty good, and it is also good that someone is taking the time to read poety aloud for others too hear.

[Moorington]

I sometimes wonder if "the low and level sands" are the true "work" of Ozymandias. The mainstream interpretation seems to be that Ozymandias created 'something' that was later destroyed by that devourer called time. Yet... Maybe it was he who brought that to the area. Perhaps the poem is talking not only of the ephemeral nature of achievements but also the permanent nature of destruction?

[lkrnpk]

@hugo199410 you're effin native speaker and can't figure out the theme of the poem...?

[javad697]

Great reading... Thanks a lot...

[singhi1969]

reminds us of sadaam

[brunobabashay1]

I like to think that it was Shelley that influenced Bertrand Russell who influenced keruoak who influenced the roshi baba who influenced brunobabashay a future poet laureate and nobel peace prize recipient for his work yet unpublished and untitled-about a guy who does'nt get along with his girlfriends cat. Meechawackinberger