19th Century British Poetry

Exercise 1:

Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias" has one overarching metaphor. Identify this metaphor and describe the main theme of this poem.

Exercise 2:

How many personae / voices are there in Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias"? Identify them. Which persona do you think is the most important? Explain your answer.

Exercise 3:

There are several "narrative layers" in Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias". Describe these narrative layers. What do you think was Shelley's purpose with so many narrative layers?

Exercise 4:

Do an analysis of Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Mutability". What do you think is the main message of this poem? Summarise the main theme of "Mutability" in one sentence.

Exercise 5:

Look at the following poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley: "England 1819", "Ode to the West Wind", "To a Skylark", "Ozymandias" and "Mutability".

Identify the forms that Shelley uses in each of these poems. If the form is a sonnet, identify the type of sonnet it is and take note of the closed forms (e.g. quatrains, octaves, sestets, and couplets) within it.

Exercise 6:

Compare the sonnets "To Wordsworth" and "Ozymandias" and the first stanza of "The Cloud". Are all of these sonnets traditional sonnets (i.e. English, Italian or Spenserian)?