Book recommendations?

[Carol]

Carol earlier:
> > ...
> > Here's "Ozymandias," which is a sonnet and consequently all of
fourteen lines, justly famous:
> > 
> >         ... snip poem ...
> > 
> > ... The poem has three speakers, the unnamed narrator, the
traveler, and Ozymandias, and the subtle irony is, IMO, very powerful.
> 
> Kemper now:
> Thanks for posting the poem Carol!  
> I'm a dumdum when it comes to irony: is it that the poet is now the
'King', you are the 'traveler' (well met on the road to HP), and I am
now the unknown narrator?
> 
> Again... I'm a bit of a dumdum so bare with me :)

Carol responds:

No. The poet (Shelley) is not speaking for himself. The "I" of the
poem is a nameless and imaginary narrator whose only purpose is to
relate the anecdote of meeting the traveler, who, in turn, relates the
description of the ruined statue and inscription. It's a distancing
device--all subjectivity is removed from everything except
Ozymandias's words, which have a double meaning (as does "the hand
that mocked them").

The irony is in Ozymandias's perception of his own greatness. When he
had the stonemasons carve the words, "Look on my works, ye mighty, and
despair!" he meant the other rulers to despair of ever equalling his
greatness." However, Ozymandias is long dead, his statue is now
reduced to "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" and "a shattered
visage," and his empire is a desert: "Nothing beside remains. Round
the decay/Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare/The lone and
level sands stretch far away." The words carved in the stone now have
a meaning that the great ruler Ozymandias did not anticipate: "Look on
my *ruined* works, ye mighty, and despair." Time brings all rulers and
all empires to nothing and makes a mockery of their boasts. ("Mocked"
in the poem means both "imitated" and "ridiculed.")

It's remarkable what a great poet can do with the fourteen-line sonnet
format. (Shelley created his own rhyme scheme rather than using either
the Shakespearean or Petrarchan forms.) 

The Wikipedia article provides the background for the composition (a
competition with a friend) and on Ozymandias, another name for a
famous Pharaoh.

Carol, who thinks that a comparison with Shelley's friend's Horace
Smith's sonnet on the same Wiki page will make it clear why Shelley's
is frequently quoted and Smith's forgotten