Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ through Harawayan Posthumanist Lens

Posthumanism challenges human-centric worldviews, emphasizing entanglement with non-human entities (nature, time, technology, animals). In Ozymandias, this lens reveals a critique of anthropocentrism through the interplay of human ambition, art, and nature’s dominance. This article aims at Shelley’s atheism and belief in nature’s power which aligns with posthumanist ideas, making Ozymandias a natural fit for such analysis. The hybrid sonnet structure blends Petrarchan and Shakespearean elements, mirroring the tension between human ambition (structured form) and chaos (irregular rhyme). Posthumanism might see this as reflecting the instability of human constructs within a larger non-human world. The desert in this poem is not passive scenery but an active force that reclaims space, aligning with posthumanist ideas of a world where humans are not central but part of a larger ecological temporal network. The poem is narrated through a traveller’s account, not Ozymandias himself—displaces the human ego. The king’s voice is reduced to a crumbling inscription, suggesting humans are transient in a posthuman world where material and environmental forces (stone, sand) outlast us. This decentering image echoes posthumanist thinkers like Donna J. Haraway, who argues for multispecies or material interconnectedness. Hence, the statue in this poem reveals as a cyborg - hybrid of human ambition and non-human decay, compelled to ‘stay with the trouble’ of nature’s indifference and embrace a multispecies world where human power is transient. This analysis, therefore, not only bridges Romanticism with posthumanism but also resonates with modern concerns like environmental crises, where human dominance falters against nature’s enduring power.