Is the sonnet ozymandias Italian or shakespearean?

Answer 1

its a 14 line poem metered in iambic pentameter. It ia Shelley's most famous from 1817. Iambic is a verse consisting of a short syllable followed by a long or an unaccented syllable followed by an accented. A pentameter in this case is verse or line of poetry of five feet

Answer 2

"Ozymandias" follows the Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet form, with an octave (8 lines) followed by a sestet (6 lines). Shakespearean sonnets, on the other hand, have three quatrains (4-line stanzas) followed by a final rhymed couplet.

Answer 3

Shelley and Keats both wrote experimental sonnets, showing both Shakespearean and Petrarchan characteristics.

Shelley's Ozymandias is, on balance, Petrarchan:- but it has some Shakespearean features.

Ozymandias opens with a ABAB rimescheme - which leads on to expect a Shakespearean sonnet; but the poem then continues with ACDC. Here the even-number rimes (C on lines 6 and 8) continue the Shakespearean form, but the odd lines (5 and 7) are neither Shakespearean nor Petrarchan.

There is a strong Volta (change of perspective) between lines 8 and 9. This is often the mark of a Petrarchan sonnet.

So after the first eight lines (the Octave) we have six lines of Shakespearean form (1,2,3,4,6,8); two lines that break the Shakespearean pattern (5,7); and a strong Volta (usually a mark of Petrarchan).

By the end of line 8, Ozymandias is a hybrid sonnet: mainly Shakespearean, but with important Petrarchan elements.

The final six lines are in standard Petrarchan form. The two rogue rimes of the Octave (5, 7) are picked up, and worked into the Sestet rimescheme. And the poem does not end in a riming couplet (as a Shakespearean sonnet would).

So the best way to describe Ozymandias is as a Petrarchan sonnet masquerading as a Shakespearean sonnet (the first four lines are Shakespearean, but from there on Petrarchan form asserts itself).

Since the poem is about how appearances can be deceptive (among many other things), it is particularly impressive that the poem itself is not what it at first seems to be.