âWe did two takes of the song, and itâs performed in front of a pretty big crowd,â Demme remembered. âAnd by that point, Meryl wasnât even looking at the strings, she was just playing.
âOzymandiasâ is at first glance a sonnet about the transitory nature of life and its pretensions of fame and fortune. The decaying, ancient statue bears witness to the fact that the pursuit of power and glory for their own sakes are not only fleeting, but they are also illusory, unworthy ambitions even within the lifetime of their seekers.
: Here is an excerpt from my Master's thesis The Public Voices of Archibald MacLeish and Bob Dylan that addresses this poem: The fact of MacLeishâs work does not coincide with the common interpretation of his poem âArs Poeticaâ as a treatise on art for artâs sake.Admittedly, the poem is easy to misinterpret.Ars Poeticaâ seems to say that poems should exist as objects and not be read as messages, which contradicts MacLeishâs ideas stated elsewhere about what can be done with poetry. In fact, the poem violates the very thing it is said to espouse! Nobody could argue that this poem does not have a message.