"Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essayThe poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelly and My Last Duchess by Robert Browning are very different However, they have something in common, both poems represent power as the poem shows that human life is insignificant compared to the passage of time, even for selfish kings like Ozymandias, time is very powerful. My Last Duchess represents power through narrative technique, which makes it seem like the Duke is speaking directly to the audience, powerful as it captures the reader. Shelley's poem ""Ozymandias"" is about a ruined statue of a powerful ruler who once controlled an ancient kingdom, Browning describes that Ozymandias was a very stern ruler - this is shown by the quote, "His sneer of cold command", his "sneer" shows that Ozymandias somehow abused the his command. power because he was a cruel leader; this leads the reader to think that King Ozymandias was most likely a dictator in his ancient kingdom. "Cold command" is an example of harsh alliteration, the strong repetition of the letter 'c' at the beginning of both words once again gives a representation of power, "command" also represents the dictatorship of the kingdom of the pharaohs and the use of the word The “cold” can show that being a dictator and abusing power this can reveal that Pharaoh may have been alone. Shelley also uses alliteration when he mentions the “endless and bare” desert, emphasizing the emptiness of the desert, which has survived much longer than the now lifeless statue. "naked" and Ozymandias has nothing left after his death because his statue has collapsed, which could represent all the influence he had has collapsed. In contrast, My Last Duchess is about a very powerful duke. We see this in the fact that he refers to his last name as “a nine hundred year old name. This shows that his family lineage has been important for many hundreds of years. This also suggests to the reader that his name would have been known throughout Italy, predominantly in Ferrara as his surname is still significant nine hundred years later. The Duke seems to be extremely proud of his name just knowing that his name has been that of power for these centuries. "Ozymandias" is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem measured in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is unusual for a sonnet of this era; it doesn't fit into a conventional Petrarchan pattern, which suggests that things are out of place. Ozymandias' government no longer exists and time has distorted all his successes and the power he had. This shows that the power the king once had has been completely changed, due to the power of time overshadowing the power of the Ozymandias. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Customize essay"