Question 127
HardOriginal questionI met a traveller from an land
Who said: Two vast and legs of stone
Stand in the desert...Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that wreck, and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Why are the words "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" ironic?
Show the answer and explanation
Correct answer: D
Explanation
The king meant other rulers to despair at how great his works were.
The very next line is "Nothing beside remains". The boast now points at empty desert, so it means the opposite of what he intended.
Worth noting
Irony is when words turn out to mean something different from what was meant. Here, time has turned the boast into a warning.
- Concept
- Recognising irony in a poem
- Typical timeTypical
- 60 s
- Your timeYours
- —
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