What does the title "Ozymandias" suggest about its subject?

"Ozymandias," a simple, one-word title, suggests the focus of the poem will be on Ozymandias, whoever that might be. The name sounds "Oriental," and at the time Shelley wrote the poem, in 1819, there was much interest in England in all things "Oriental," so the title would have sparked interest in contemporary audiences. (As Edward Said has shown, "the Orient" stretched in the popular imagination as a "single monolith" from the Middle East to Asia.)...

"Ozymandias," a simple, one-word title, suggests the focus of the poem will be on Ozymandias, whoever that might be. The name sounds "Oriental," and at the time Shelley wrote the poem, in 1819, there was much interest in England in all things "Oriental," so the title would have sparked interest in contemporary audiences. (As Edward Said has shown, "the Orient" stretched in the popular imagination as a "single monolith" from the Middle East to Asia.) The short title, with its commanding sound, also suggests that we will read about a commanding person.

The poem, in fact, does focus on Ozymandias, who is based on the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II, whose statue was being shipped to England at the time. The poem examines primarily the broken statue of this man who once thought himself the greatest of rulers, presiding at the head of a great kingdom, inspiring terror in his enemies. Instead of greatness, we see the scattered pieces of a ruin, strewn across not a kingdom but a desert waste. The title, after we have read the poem, thus reflects Shelley's irony: great tyrants come to nothing, no matter how they might delude themselves into thinking their glory will never end.