Kwan Lung Chan 
Structuralism and Poststructuralism Applied. Percy Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ 

Essay from the year 2019 in the subject Literature – Basics, grade: B, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, course: ENGE5710 Critical Approaches in Literature, language: English, abstract: In this essay, the author will first look at the background in which ‘Ozymandias’ is set, and then will analyze the message of the story from the structuralist perspective through the details of the poet, and the history of the king Ozymandias.

Then he will look at the uncertainties of the speakers in the poem in the poststructuralist perspective, which expresses Shelley’s dissatisfaction of being only able to hear about the statue from the others.

According to Barry (2017), the structuralists use scientific methods to analyze a literary work. They look into the conventions of the genre, the history or different forms of art (including other literature) that the literary work refers to. On the other hand, the poststructuralists look into paradoxes and uncertainties as they think that signs’ meanings depend on the perceiver, and different people would have different perceptions.