I met a traveller from an antique land, / Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / Stand in the desert…
-- Speaker (Lines 1 – 3)

Importance: These lines open the poem by introducing its framing, making it a story told by the speaker about a story he heard from the traveler. The traveler, thought to be an allusion to the ancient historian Diodorus Siculus, illustrates the power of art and in particular the written word to travel through time. Though Shelley presents the traveler as speaking in the poem, the ellipsis at the beginning of his speech points to his dual oral/literary nature, as this punctuation suggests both dramatic dialogue and a citation from a literary source, such as Diodorus’ Bibliotheca universalis.

Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk a shattered visage lies.
-- Speaker (Lines 3 – 4)

Importance: These lines introduce the statue’s face, which will serve as a springboard for the traveler’s analysis of what the...