Ozymandias and My Last Duchess
There are so many things to be said about these two poems, but a great skill in the exam is not to say everything you know, but the most relevant things and to make them into an argument.
Compare and contrast the ways poets present the power of artworks in My Last Duchess and one other poem from the anthology.
Both ‘My Last Duchess’ and ‘Ozymandias’ are poems dripping with irony. Both focus on a work of art as their central image and both defy the conventions of their time to criticise prevailing power structures.
‘My Last Duchess’ centres on the description of a realistic painting of a beautiful woman. We hear twice that she looks ‘as if she were alive,’ her widower describes ‘the depth and passion’ of her face and the ‘spot of joy’ in her cheek. This painting, as did the woman it depicts, has the power to incite strong feelings in the viewer. However, rather tragically, the painting has incited dangerously jealous feelings in the Duke, who sees the ‘half-flush that dies along her throat’ as evidence that his wife was blushing with passion for a man other than him. Sadly, he expects his wife to respond to other people with the same inanimate passivity as a painting. Unfortunately for her, his vivacious young wife isn't able to do that as she is ‘impressed’ alike by the ‘dropping of the daylight In the West,’ ‘the bow of cherries’ offered by an admirer as much as by the Duke’s ‘gift of a nine-hundred years old name.’ He cannot countenance his wife's liberal affections, however innocent, and her blushing, passionate portrait becomes evidence, judge and jury for her execution.
In ‘Ozymandias,’ the powerful artwork is a gigantic statue that clearly used to tower over the landscape. However, like the broken rhyme scheme of this sonnet, the statue is broken and lying in pieces in the desert. As in ‘My Last Duchess’ the poet, Shelley, pays tribute to his fellow artist, the sculptor who has so effectively captured the ‘frown … wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command’ of the King he is depicting. And it is not the destruction of this powerful work of art that the poem memorialises, rather the loss of power of Ozymandias himself, whose hubris has presumably brought about his downfall. Ironically, the part of the statute that remains intact are the feet and the pedestal which contain the words that are central to unlocking this meaning. ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: look on my works ye Mighty and despair!’ That it is his words that remain and nothing of his civilisation tells us not only of the impermanence of human endeavour but also allows Shelley to suggest that other artworks are less permanent than poetry and the written word.
These Romantic poets have both used their poems about other works of art to criticise prevailing power structures in society. Browning has his silent Duchess gaze out reproachfully at the society that has insisted that she live her life in a very narrow box, and that she has given her life for the narrow expectation that society has placed upon her. Whilst the attitudes displayed by Browning’s Duke are hyperbolic, they all existed to some extent in Victorian Britain when he was writing. Shelley is criticising a wider, less specific set of social attitudes but he was writing as the industrial revolution was gaining momentum and as cities in England were experiencing rapid growth. As a Romantic poet he privileged nature over urban development, and we can clearly see his concern about hubristic industrial development reflected here.
Both of these poets have used powerful artworks to suggest that there needs to be change in society's attitudes. However, in doing so, both poets have created powerful artworks of their own. The hubris that Shelly mocks in Ozymandias is perhaps reflected in his claim that when ‘nothing [physical] remains’ the words of poets will still stand. There is less hubris in Browning's poem, but its heroic verse form tells us that he was aware of the continuum of great poetry from Homer and Hesiod via Shakespeare to his own time. And weren’t they right, these poets? Their words do remain.
Written in 45 minutes - just like in the exam. Feel free to comment.
