I Am Ozymandias, King of Kings

Recently, I've been fascinated by the Shelley poem "Ozymandias."

I mean, most well-educated people can pull out the operative line to make the point of megalomania: "I am Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" But only a few who have survived something resembling a classical education can pull the whole poem from memory, including me.

So while doing a sound check, requiring one to run on and on in order to provide continuous speech to check levels, I regretted that I had never memorized some epic poem for the occasion, and "Ozymandias" came to mind.

I looked it up that evening, and printed the text. It's far from epic in length, just 14 lines, so I set out to make up for lost time and memorize it.

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 The task proved easier than expected. The first dozen or so lines came quite easily and quickly, though for some reason I am now struggling with the last two. However, that's not what struck me most.

David Roberts, Fragments of the Great Colossi (of Rameses II), 

at the Memnonium (Ramesseum), 1838

First, though I am late to the party, I am so amazed at the quality of the writing. Each word has its place, and each is perfectly chosen. I think that's what made memorization so easy: only that word, that phrase could follow the last. No other one would do.

But then the structure became apparent. From my angle as a TV reporter, I realized it's a perfect television news story, spinning out its information in a catchy way before the big reveal.

Writing news for TV is unlike a lot of other journalism. Usually one is taught the newspaper, inverted pyramid method: Important information up front, secondary data next, fill details following. So a story goes: So-and-so was murdered today in Chicago. (The lede, with the most important facts) He was at a party with friends at a car repair shop when gunmen entered and killed the group. (More data that was not so critical) And so on. Not getting that critical fact up front is know as "Burying the lede."

TV, especially a feature story, is more of a storytelling medium. The information is doled out in easily comprehended pieces, one after the other, so that the viewer doesn't lose his place. In the words of my journalism professor -- not forgotten after 35 years -- the viewer can't go back a page to figure out a reference. You have to write so it makes sense that one time it flies by.

So let's look at Ozymandias as a feature piece for TV.

For one thing, because it's poetry, the line breaks are in different places than they would be for a script. So let's rearrange Shelley (accompanied by the horrified screams of English teachers everywhere).

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert. . . . 

Near them, on the sand, half sunk 

a shattered visage lies, 

whose frown, and wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

tell that its sculptor well those passions read, which yet survive,

stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. 

Round the decay of that colossal Wreck, 

boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Ok. Now try reading it as a narrative voice over with the returns being where one is tempted to pause.

The opening line sets the scene. I love the choice of "antique land," especially as my mind kept jumping to a more cliched "ancient land." Antique is such a better word, carrying so much more baggage. 

But why this open at all? Can't we just jump into the facts? Two reasons:

1. It sets it as a story, not a scene.

2. More to my point (that this is a great TV story): Reporting is almost never contemporaneous (much as we would like it to be). Usually, we're showing up after the fact and trying to put together what happened. Most all of journalism is "who said." 

And then we get the descriptor of facts and scene. TV stories, I think, are told like a good bar story, laying out the facts bit by bit to build a structure, or laying them out like a triumphant display or the cards of a winning poker hand: one at a time building to the finish. So we get it here: two legs, but no body, made of stone, standing in the desert. Next to them a face, broken from the statue. But not just broken, a "shattered visage." How much better? A total image in just two words.

Then both character and a summary of how well sculpted was the image, capturing the subject so well that his passions yet survive in the stone ("stamped on these lifeless things," again, how much packed into five words). 

Finally, the big reveal: "Nothing beside remains."

Boom.

The rest is an easy set down for the listener (viewer), re-enforcing the image gently: boundless and bare, lone and level sands to the horizon.

All that remains is the sig out.

It only runs around 40 to 50 seconds as a straight read, and there is no sound or nat pops, so there's that. But what a simple, tight, perfectly told tale.