Question Paper - Paper 2 Modern Texts and Poetry - Section B - Ozy - The Prelude - June 2018

Section B
Compare how poets present ideas about power in Ozymandias and

in one other poem
Both poets present the power of nature and portray nature as sublime.
However, Shelly portrays nature’s power to erode its eponymous villain’s
legacy, whereas Wordsworth portrays nature’s power to strike fear into
the heart of man. Both Shelley and Wordsworth being romantic poets,
the landscapes in their poems are imbued with meaning, as romantic
poets believed that the natural world was capable of teaching us great
truths about our own nature and life itself.
Shelley wrote Ozymandias in the form of a sonnet, typically associated

with love, desire. However, unlike a typical sonnet which is addressed to
a lover, Shelley’s sonnet subverts the form to critique man’s power and
vanity. Shelly, like other romantic poets, were critical of the monarchy
and Ozymandias could represent King George III, the reigning monarch
during that time. Perhaps the ‘sneer of cold command’ is a subtle
allusion to the expression of the rotund British monarch. Maybe
contemporary readers would have read Ozymandias as a thinly veiled
critique of King George III, who was called an autocrat by members of
parliament, rather than a more general critique of human power and
autocrats.
In contrast to Shelley’s third person narrative, Wordsworth’s Prelude is

written in the first person. The first person form adds tension to the
experience of its narrator being terrified of the mountain. It is also written
in blank verse which gives the poem a dramatic and serious tone.
Wordsworth perhaps intends to suggest that the experience the narrator
has when the mountain ‘upreared his head’ is somehow life changing. At
the end of the extract there is both the sense that the narrator has
experienced something profound but also something so mysterious it
can hardly be articulated. The experience puts him in a ‘serious mood’
and his ‘brain worked with a dim and undetermined sense/ Of unknown
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exclusive use of the purchaser
modes of being’. The phrase ‘serious mood’ implies the narrator doesn’t
feel embarrassed by being frightened by the landscape as a reader
might well expect, but gives the whole experience serious, considered
contemplation. The vague phrase of ‘unknown modes of being’ implies
that the narrator has experienced something sublime, beyond the
ordinary realm of human perception. And the awkwardness of the
phrasing and the use of enjambment are Wordsworth’s methods of
signposting both his desperate desire to try and articulate this new and
profound experience and his inability to do so–to put it into words we can
understand. Wordsworth, like other romantic poets, believed the natural
word was capable of providing us with truth and meaning. Perhaps
Wordsworth’s deeper message is that the most profound truths are to be
found in the natural world, not in science, not in logic, not in textbooks.
Only nature has the power to bring us closer to the ultimate truth.
Oppositely to the immediacy of Wordsworth’s first person narrative,

Ozymandias is written in the third person and the narrator’s account of
‘Ozymandias’, the eponymous target of the poem, is second hand, the
account of ‘a traveller from an antique land’. By framing the narrative this
way in the opening, Shelley subtly diminishes Ozymandias’ legacy and
power. Shelley then focuses on the ‘shattered visage of Ozymandias’
‘trunkless legs’. The phrasing ‘trunkless legs’ sounds comical and
mocking. Perhaps Shelley’s intention here is to portray Ozymandias in a
way which is laughable. In contrast to the powerful and awe inspiring
way Ozymandias wished to be portrayed captured in the words on his
pedestal: ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye
Mighty, and despair’. Shelley wants to emphasise that there is nothing
mighty about the pharaoh now. His empire has been laid to waste by the
power of nature, and all that remain are fragments. This idea is further
emphasised in the description of the ‘traveller from an antique land’ in
the opening line. The phrase ‘antique land’ implying that the country is
one of ruins, not one which inspires fear or awe. Ultimately, Shelley
suggests our vanity and determination to stamp a legacy are ridiculous.
Wordsworth extract also begins emphasising the power of nature, but

not in a destructive sense. The narrator personifies nature as an

irresistible woman ‘(led by her)’ curiously parenthesised. The
parenthesis here implies that it is something secret, perhaps dangerous.
Wordsworth also uses language from the semantic field of bondage: the
boat is ‘tied’ and the narrator describes how he ‘unloosened her chain’.
The choice phrasing suggests the narrator is engaging in an act of
liberation, and he must be careful not to get caught, ‘It was an act of
stealth’ he recalls. Perhaps the underlying message is that the natural
world in a psychic sense pulls the narrator out into the water, where he is
free from the ordinary bounds of perception to deliver deep and terrifying
revelations.
Alliteration plays an important part in both poems and emphasises the

power of nature and its ability to make us feel small and insignificant. In
Ozymandias in the final lines there is the plosive ‘boundless and bare’
which emphasises the terrifying nature of the desert’s vastness.
Interestingly, the phrase is contained within a relative clause with no
qualifying relative pronoun, and this creates some ambiguity: is it the
statue or the desert which is ‘boundless’. This is perhaps a conscious
choice to reflect the ambiguous nature of where the shattered monument
ends and the desert begins, as it is swallowed (‘sunk’) by the sands and
slowly but surely eroded away. Then there is liquid alliteration and
sibilance in the final line ‘the lone and level sands stretch far away’. The
liquid alliteration and the sibilance mirroring the ever shifting nature of
the sand and its sense of being 'boundless'. Only the natural world is in
some sense infinite, and man’s power is not. Our time is finite.
Alliteration also plays a prominent role in The Prelude, emphasising the

power of nature to excite or terrify our imagination. When the extract
reaches its volta, the liquid alliteration (which complements the smooth
and confident movement of the narrator, who, ‘lustily’ rows through the
‘silent lake’), jars with the harsh consonant sounds to describe the
mountain. There is the half rhyme of ‘craggy steep’ and ‘huge peak’ and
the repetition of ‘struck’ in ‘struck and struck again’. These harsh
consonant sounds deliberately contrast with the liquid and sibilant
soundscape which precede it to mirror how suddenly the mountain
seems to rise up and catch the narrator unaware. Additionally the

repetition of ‘struck and struck’ again expresses his panic and how he
races to return to the ‘covert of the willow tree’, rowing with all his
strength away from the perceived threat of the mountain. Tellingly the
word ‘covert’ implies that the narrator feels like prey as a covert is a
thicket in which game hide. Wordsworth is suggesting either he wants to
hide himself from the view of the mountain or hide it from his own view.
The mountain has cast a powerful spell on the narrator which troubles
his mind.
In summary, both poets portray nature as sublime, alive and far more
powerful than man. Reading Shelley’s Ozymandias as a critique of the
vanity of autocrats, the message is that nature has the power to humble.
Similarly, the narrator in The Prelude is humbled by the vastness of the
mountain which ‘towered’ over him. In both poems there is the idea that
the natural world has the power to make us feel small and insignificant.
However, in The Prelude there is also the suggestion that nature has the
power to tell us great truths and see beyond the ordinary boundaries of
perception.


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Section B

Compare how poets present ideas about power in Ozymandias and

Shelley wrote Ozymandias in the form of a sonnet, typically associated

In contrast to Shelley’s third person narrative, Wordsworth’s Prelude is

bluefishtuition.co.uk Copyright © Blue Fish Tuition – For

Oppositely to the immediacy of Wordsworth’s first person narrative,

Wordsworth extract also begins emphasising the power of nature, but

bluefishtuition.co.uk Copyright © Blue Fish Tuition – For

Alliteration plays an important part in both poems and emphasises the

Alliteration also plays a prominent role in The Prelude, emphasising the

bluefishtuition.co.uk Copyright © Blue Fish Tuition – For

bluefishtuition.co.uk Copyright © Blue Fish Tuition – For

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