/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18636903]

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer 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 pedestal 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 colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

[Anonymous No.18636995]

>>18636903
In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

[Anonymous No.18637021]

How does one get this good?

[Anonymous No.18637076]

>>18637021
Practice.

[Anonymous No.18637097]

>>18636903
My favorite poem :)

[Anonymous No.18637261]

>>18636995
>Ozymandias
>Babylon
euh.... kinda cringe

[Anonymous No.18637282]

>>18637261
This board is full of idiots

[Anonymous No.18637316]

>>18636903
Aye
Ay ao Yo YO
So dis gypsy in the sand’s like look over there,
There’s a big nigga just standin there
Word on the caravan’s that he was kang
He fucked lotta women and left lotta kids
N’ cause his head was big and his pp small
He made a mighty statue near his pointy crib
So I look at dis nigga and whaddya know,
Mofo’s missing his head and nine of his his toes
Da pedestal say “yuh yuh, ise supa fly”
But the sand in the wind blowing’ ‘gainst his dick
Make me think that all this might be irony.
Aye yuh yuh
Yo
Follow for more sick beatz
Yuh

[Anonymous No.18637327]

>>18636903
Remember, yall, it's not a poem about legacy's impermanence, as made clear by the Traveler's inclusion. It's about uncontrollable legacy. Ozymandias lives on, only not how he expected. Take that in hand with the poems huge success and we have a funny argument that the poem's existence reinforces.

[Anonymous No.18637578]

>>18636903
This reading of it blows all others out of the water
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T3dpghfRBHE

[Anonymous No.18637598]

>>18636903
Alan moore wrote that??

[Anonymous No.18637756]

This ozymandius nigga say he made
Big, 'portant works i can't see there
O shit lil nigga, where your big works stayed?
Down endless feet in sandy desert lair.

Stay mad, you kingly faggot, lick my PP
Until you look above it you can't see me
O wait you can't because your big shit's gone
And aint last longer than my grandpa's lawn.

So eat my ass you faggot, then dispair
That i will laugh your old dead ass and stare
At sands with nothing 'top them but your mug
That seethes it's unimportant as a bug

This sonnets for my niggas down the block
Whose deeds are permenant as ozy's cock

[Anonymous No.18637760]

>>18637598
No

[Anonymous No.18637927]

>>>/lit/thread/S14434916#p14438418

Legendary thread, contains:

>I wake into a dream a desert
>Vastness which dries up the sky
>And swallows whole ambition
>Much of hot air and swollen tongue

>Long wind conceals the aching step
>Cruel song erasing and revealing hope
>The shade of chiseled godking
>Statue reduced to warren mound

>Between the fallen Titans toes
>I rest and listen for a whisper
>A scarab crawls inside my boot
>The beetle knows my secret

>It flaps its wings in rhythm to my heartbeat
>The sun stings softly my revealed pink flesh
>The blood rushes a torrential storm inside
>I grasp the stone for balance at the out

>My cum drips flesh ivory ribbons
>Ozymandias my king, I shudder
>You have exquisite arches, my moist gratitude
>Releases you from time despair

AND:

>WHENCE I FRAYED, SHE PURPORTED FIRM
>WRITHED ME IN TWO, THE WORM'S WORM
>EVEN THE PERDITION THEY CHURN
>STILL WRINGING I MAYBE RETURN
>OZYMANDIAS, DEAD, AND I SPURN
>EACH GRAIN OF MY THRICE BROKEN URN
>AND THOUGH KNOW NOTHING STILL DISCERN
>THE TINGE OF ONE WHO LAUGHS AT THESE
>SHIMMERING IN GRUESOME WRATH
>THE TRANSFIGURED SOCRATES

[Anonymous No.18638053]

>>18637327
What's the traveller got to do with it?

[Anonymous No.18638101]

The year is '94, in my trunk is raw
In my rearview mirror is the motherfuckin' law
Got two choices, y'all: pull over the car or
Bounce on the devil, put the pedal to the floor
And I ain't tryin' to see no highway chase with Jake
Plus I got a few dollars, I can fight the case
So I pull over to the side of the road
I heard, "Son, do you know why I'm stopping you for?"
‘Cause I'm young and I'm black and my hat's real low?
Do I look like a mind reader, sir? I don't know
Am I under arrest or should I guess some more?
"Well, you was doing 55 in a 54
License and registration and step out of the car
Are you carrying a weapon on you? I know a lot of you are."
I ain't steppin' out of shit, all my paper's legit
"Well, do you mind if I look around the car a little bit?"
Well, my glove compartment is locked, so is the trunk in the back
And I know my rights, so you gon' need a warrant for that
"Aren't you sharp as a tack?
You some type of lawyer or something?
Somebody important or something?"
Well, I ain't passed the bar, but I know a little bit
Enough that you won't illegally search my shit
"Well, we'll see how smart you are when the K9 come!"
I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain't one

[Anonymous No.18638136]

From the Egyptian literary text ''Dialogue between a Man and his Soul'', ca. 1800BC:

They who built in granite,
who erected halls in excellent tombs of fine construction,
so that the builders should become gods,
their offering-stones are desolate,
like the oblivious dead,
who died on the riverbank for lack of a survivor, when the flood has taken its toll,
and the sunlight likewise,
to whom only the fishes at the water's edge talk!

From the Book of Job, ca. 400BC:

Why did I not die from the womb,
from the belly come out, breathe my last?
Why did knees welcome me,
and why breasts, that I should suck?
For now I would lie and be still,
would sleep and know repose
with kings and the councillors of earth,
who build ruins for themselves,
or with princes, possessors of gold,
who fill their houses with silver.

[Anonymous No.18638142]

>>18637598
As far as quoting à propos can go, nobody can beat Oppenheimer.

[Anonymous No.18638149]

>>18637261

[Anonymous No.18638193]

>>18638053
The traveler passes along the story to the uncharacterized "I" that starts the poem. So let's break this down.

>Ozymandias tells sculptor to sculpt (presumably)
>Traveler finds ruins
>Traveler spreads tale to speaker
>Speaker tells poem to us, the reader

The legacy of Ozymandias is still very much alive, just warped.

[Anonymous No.18638242]

>>18638193
How is it warped though? Did the traveler necessarily lie? Do statues and monuments not crumble?

[Anonymous No.18638272]

>>18638242
interpretation after interpretation after interpretation

[Anonymous No.18638302]

So we all raise a standard
to which the wise and honest soul may repair;
to which a hunter,
a hundred years from now,
may look, and despair, and see with wonder
the tributes we have left to rust in the park:
swearing that our hair stood on end,
to see John Purroy Mitchel depart for the Western Front,
where work might count.
All exeunt! All go out!
Await the hunter, to decipher the stone
(and what lies under, now).
The city is gone.
Look, and despair.
Look, and despair.

[Anonymous No.18638310]

>>18638193
>>18638272
you have the slightest inkling of an idea, but you can't articulate how that idea informs or reshapes our understanding of the poem. keep thinking, then try posting again.

[Anonymous No.18638642]

>>18636903
i met a loser

[Anonymous No.18638791]

>>18638310
No, it's extremely simple. People point to Ozymandias as a warning tale about pride and how it leads to downfall. That is not what the poem is about. The poem is about transformative legacy. In this case, it's the telephonetic medium (i.e. how many mouths the story comes from before it gets to the reader) that reinforces the thrust of the poem.

This becomes abundantly clear when you compare it to the poem Shelley competed against, whose author I forget, but I have no more time to explain. I live in a camper and the driver is taking off. Goodluck

[Anonymous No.18638813]

>>18638791
not him, but i always understood it as a poem situated in a specific stage of that degeneration of legacy or power - the warning tone comes through not by forgetting, since that would be impossible, but by implying that, as the physical remains of the great king and his structures have nearly faded, so too will that poem and his figure in memory

[Anonymous No.18638825]

>>18638791
Again, statues and monuments crumble, and there's no indication that the story-teller is unreliable. Your interpretation is entirely projective.

[Anonymous No.18638876]

>>18638825
I dont think the traveler is unreliable. Who said that? Im merely pointing out that he's continuing the legacy of Ozymandias instead of squandering it by telling the story. Youre the one projecting.

[Anonymous No.18638908]

>>18638825
No, anon has a point.

So Ozy it’s a great king that builds statue as long as the city prospers people know who Ozy is.
When the city is ruined only few remember who Ozy is.
As time passes by people forget, and only the ones that happen to pass by the statue know who Ozy is.
Here is where the traveler and the speaker become important, apparently the speaker has not seen the ruins, the traveler tells him of the ruins, now the speaker knows of Ozy, and the speaker is telling us of Ozy. Ozys legacy lives on

[Anonymous No.18638975]

>>18637261

[Anonymous No.18638979]

>>18638876
You explicitly stated that it was warped. >>18638193
Get your fucking ideas straight you scatterbrained retard.

[Anonymous No.18639011]

>>18638979
Warped does not mean unreliable. It's warped in the sense that being remembered as a ruined statue isn't what Ozymandias had in mind when he had it constructed. Please refrain from name calling. We're talking about one of the most renowned English poems.

[Anonymous No.18639040]

>>18638908
Again, where is the indication that anything about Ozymandias or his legacy was misrepresented by either the traveller or story-teller? Your contention that his legacy still lives on is merely a refutation of the poem's thesis, not a revision of its intention.

[Anonymous No.18639072]

>>18639011
Anon, I don’t think that anon wants to discuss, he simply wants to be right. So yeah.
>>18639040
You are right

[Anonymous No.18639090]

>>18639011
Oh, so the impermanence of legacy. Got it.
>Please refrain from name calling.
Sorry tranny, this probably isn't the hug box you're looking for. Maybe reddit is more your speed.

[Anonymous No.18639172]

>>18639090
>Oh, so the impermanence of legacy. Got it.
Still no, anon. Ozymandias HAS a legacy, it just wasn't the one he intended. In other words, warped. Also, dont let your situation (in this case, 4chan) determine the person you are. Be the best person you can be.

[Anonymous No.18639175]

>>18639072
The irony being declared right in the same breathe as being censured for "wanting to be".

[Anonymous No.18639202]

>>18639172
but where will the legacy be when all of his statue is dust? ''here once stood'' will become nothing

[Anonymous No.18639289]

>>18639202
In the mouth of the traveler, who has now become you.

[Anonymous No.18639303]

>>18637756
I kecked. Shitty tho.

[Anonymous No.18639322]

>>18638193
>>18638310
>>18638825
retarded anon alert

[Anonymous No.18639328]

>>18639172
And the human body is permanent because its chemical composition simply transforms upon death. Stars are permanent because they just spread apart as dust after supernova. Everything is permanent because of the law of conservation of mass. The point is any originally recognizable legacy he'd established had been lost. Whether you want to call that warped, eroded, degraded is a meaningless quibble in semantics. Impermanence in any commonly understood sense of the term is perfectly applicable to the context.

[Anonymous No.18639340]

>>18639289
Are you really prepared to take the stance that not a single legacy has been lost to time, anon?

[Anonymous No.18639347]

the hand that mocked them: do you anons interpret this as the scuptor's hand, mimicking(copying) ozy's features or ozy's stern, ruling hand?

[Anonymous No.18639356]

>>18639347
Why not both?

[Anonymous No.18639360]

>>18639340
this has got to be b8

[Anonymous No.18639383]

>>18639328
Nope. This is refuted by the inclusion of the traveler

[Anonymous No.18639388]

>>18639360

[Anonymous No.18639390]

>>18639383
>> >>18639388