Percy Shelley: Poems

The 'hand' and the 'heart' (line 8) are, of course, the hand and the heart of the sculptor, not Ozymandias. Discuss the irony in this fact, referring particulary to lines 10 and 11

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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The irony comes from the fact that Ozymandias's statue will not be a source of remembrance for a great man, but rather a testament to his oppression of his people. He did nothing to build a memory built on merit and great deeds, but rather destroyed it by dominating his people during his lifetime and leaving behind a great token to what he believed himself to be in the immortal form of a monument.