Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley
, Background on the poet
• Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
• Atheist – Was expelled from university due to his encouragement o
atheism in his writing.
• Second generation Romantic poet
Dislike of urban life and embrace the natural world
A love for the supernatural
Use of ordinary everyday language
• Died at the age of 29, drowned while sailing to Italy.
• Married twice. His second wife was Mary Shelley(famous for writing
Frankenstein)
,Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1 I met a traveller from an antique land,
2 Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
3 Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
4 Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
5 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
6 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
7 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
8 The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
9 And on the pedestal, these words appear:
10 “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
11 Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
12 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
13 Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
14 The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
, Analysis
Percy Bysshe Shelley
, Background on the poet
• Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 – 1822
• Atheist – Was expelled from university due to his encouragement o
atheism in his writing.
• Second generation Romantic poet
Dislike of urban life and embrace the natural world
A love for the supernatural
Use of ordinary everyday language
• Died at the age of 29, drowned while sailing to Italy.
• Married twice. His second wife was Mary Shelley(famous for writing
Frankenstein)
,Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
1 I met a traveller from an antique land,
2 Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
3 Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
4 Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
5 And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
6 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
7 Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
8 The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
9 And on the pedestal, these words appear:
10 “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
11 Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
12 Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
13 Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
14 The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
, Analysis
