GCSE English Literature. A grade 9 30/30 example of what a poetry comparison essay should look like. Poems being compared in this essay are Ozymandias by Shelley and London by William Blake.
Compare how the writers present ideas about
Power/Oppression in London and Ozymandias (30/30)
In both poems, the antithetical perspectives of power are elucidated; in London, it is the perennial
repercussions for the poor under tyrannical wielding of power by the aristocracy whereas in
Ozymandias, it shows the journey of the tyrannical wielder itself. Both poems, however,
adumbrate the idea of how populace suffer under iniquitous leaders.
In Ozymandias, a sonnet metered in iambic pentameter, is devoted to a single metaphor of a
shattered to statue on a wasteland. It articulates the ephemerality and transience of human
power yet in London oppressive power as perennial. In Ozymandias, in a caesura, “Stands in the
desert. Near them on the sand” - this breviloquent, diminutive sentence is an expression of how
this sentence being stood alone in the poem is identical to Ozymandias’ stature being left alone in
the desert as it slowly collapses; which is emblematic of it becoming evanescent even though it
was once venerated as “King of Kings.” In this line, “King of Kings,” the rhyme scheme highlights
the hollowness of Ozymandias’ words as nothing of these lines follows the expectations of the
sonnet form; The meter is similarly a bit off in these lines. Line 10 has 11 syllables rather than the
usual 10, while line 11 has the idea of how even the mightiest of tyrants being obliterated by time.
The dactylic rhythm – fall in each metrical unit – also refers to the fall of Ozymandias over time
and how its statue transmogrified into “half sunk” and “shattered”. Shelley further elucidates this
fall through referring to him as a “Lifeless thing” - using an epithet/antonomasia for him rather
than his actual name which adumbrates how insignificant someone once deemed so powerful has
become. Hence, Shelley uses this poem as an aphorism of ‘all power is temporary’ and to perhaps
critiques the fall of Emperor Napolean – and created this poem to serve as a warning to those who
seek political and military power and will be eventually forgotten.
Ozymandias and in London – the framing of the sonnet and scarcity of information on the narrator
enables the poems to keep focus on the effects of power; whether that’s the cynosure of the
statue or of the inimical effects on the people in London. The beginning of both poems
prognosticates what follows up, (“I met”) and (“I wander”). The past tense of I met shows how
Ozymandias’ hegemony is only a figment of the past yet in London the present tense suggests that
the oppression is ongoing. The use of ‘I’ only once in both poems causes Shelley and Blake to be
disconnected from the poems as they attempt to portray a political message through the work.
Through disguising this as a message from someone else, they remove any blame society may pin
on them. This idea of disguising is , ironically, vivid in Lines 9-10 of ‘London’, the acrostic ‘HEAR’.
Blake uses this imperative as an imprisoned plea for help to stir rueful reflections in readers and
enable them to fathom the level of suffering and how the aristocrats were not helping either
hence asking readers to HEAR and perhaps bring change. Hence both poems have an ultimate aim
of trying to instill awareness in the audience – the effects of power or to make them aware of the
suffering.
This interlinks with Blake’s poem to proselytize his aversion to tyrannical wielding of power –
where in contrast to Ozymandias, it is very much in the present. Blake utilizes four regular
quatrains to reinforce the sense of the people of London being regimented and controlled and
how people feel as it is never ending. In London, the use of anadiplosis and anaphora resonates
and rears throughout the poem which enables Blake to highlight the perennial nature of
oppressive power. “Mark in every face. Marks of weakness, marks of woe.” - this gives strident
orchestration to pain and misery through the semantic field of weakness and woe. Blake uses this
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