My thesis statement: Percy Bysshe Shelley and Emma Lazarus use statues to symbolize what each culture considers valuable and aspires to achieve.
1. Percy Bysshe Shelley (4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was a British writer who is regarded as one of the foremost English Romantic poets. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s life and works exemplify English Romanticism’s extremes of joyous ecstasy and brooding despair.
4. The “Ozymandias” poems address two themes: rulers’ inevitable decline and their pretensions to greatness. Despite Ozymandias’ lofty ambitions, the poem reveals that power is fleeting. The poem emphasizes the vanity of human glory and power.
5. It is less well known that Shelley’s most famous short poem, Ozymandias, was the result of a competition between himself and his friend Horace Smith, a financier, verse parodist, and historical novelist. In the poem, Shelley describes a crumbling statue of Ozymandias to illustrate the fleeting nature of political power and to celebrate art’s ability to preserve the past.
9. Shelley was a political radical who opposed the British monarchy. You could argue that this poem is a critique of wielding (having and using) power in an undemocratic manner and ruling like a tyrant.
10. The poem expresses how anyone who claims to be great and believes themselves to be superior is doomed to fall. The central theme of ‘Ozymandias’ is that power is never absolute or eternal.
Question #1 and #10 for Lazarus.
1. Emma Lazarus was born July 22, 1849, in New York City. Lazarus is best known for writing the sonnet “The New Colossus” in 1883, which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty.
4. The main message of “The New Colossus” is about immigrants’ hopes and dreams for better lives. The Statue of Liberty serves as a welcoming beacon to the “huddled masses” and “those yearning for freedom.” She represents peace, comfort, and compassion.
5. Lazarus wrote the poem in 1883 to fund the construction of a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. In 1903, the poem was cast on a bronze plaque and installed in the pedestal’s lower level.
9. Three years before the Statue of Liberty was dedicated on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor, Lazarus was commissioned to write a poem as part of an arts festival to raise funds for the statue’s pedestal. Lazarus, inspired by her own Sephardic Jewish heritage
10. The main message of “The New Colossus” is about immigrants’ hopes and dreams for a better life. The Statue of Liberty welcomes the “huddled masses” and “those yearning to be free.” She represents peace, comfort, and compassion.