General Literary Resources - Textual Reference Works - Magda Pfunder

I was assigned to find some textual reference works that might help us better understand the poem "Ozymandias". Textual reference works are meant to help us understand words, diction, and style used throughout a work.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/despair#h1
This resource could be very helpful in understanding Percy Bysshe Shelley's work because of the carefully chosen words in this poem. Using a common dictionary would help one to understand where these words come from, how they are used, and what exactly they mean, which in turn helps one to understand why the author might have chosen them to convey exactly what they wanted to say. For example, I looked up the work "despair" in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, used by Ozymandias in the last few lines: "Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!". I found that despair was used primarily as a noun to aid in describing how an action was done (to "cry out in despair" or to "give in to despair", to name some examples) until about the 14th century, when it came to be used more as a verb, as it is used here. When it is used as a verb, the emotion seems stronger; when we just "despair", it seems that the sadness and hopelessness takes over our entire body, as opposed to simply "crying out in despair" or something of that sort. Understanding this helps me understand how proud Ozymandias had to be of his "Works" to command others to look on them and "despair".

The Historical Thesaurus of English
https://ht.ac.uk/category/?type=search&qsearch=sneer&page=1#id=126678
Using this tool was interesting and enlightening because it allowed me to look up words used in this poem and discover when they were used, how long they were used, and what feeling they convey when they are used. This tool would be helpful in analyzing poetry because it helps us understand the feeling that we get from reading certain words as compared to other words. I looked up the word "sneer", which was used to describe King Ozymandias's face: "sneer of cold command". I found that it was categorized under "express contempt of" in the thesaurus, and even further sub-categorized under "by facial expression". What I found interesting was that, excluding the word "frown", it was the only word categorized under that heading. "Sneer" seemed to be the only way that one could express contempt only with one's face. In order to show the personality of Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley only had the Ozymandias's face to work with. From the word "sneer", we can understand Ozymandias's character even though we never see any part of him other than the head of his statue.

Using these resources was simple and easy, and something I would not think to use when analyzing literature or poetry. However, using these resources makes sense because of how carefully words are chosen, especially in poetry. Someone researching "Ozymandias" in this way would find, I think, that every word in the poem is chosen to portray an over-the-top character of Ozymandias, further adding to the irony of the poem's conclusion.