Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley

OZYMANDIAS. 1818

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Part of sonnet writing competition about Ozymandias wiith Horace Smith

Who was Percy Bysshe Shelley?

• Atheist
• Vegetarian
• Pacifist
• Radical 
• Non-violent protests
• Came from a respectable family
• 2nd generation Romantic. Romanticism had sort of died down by this time, so 2nd generation Romantics worked hard to distinguish themselves.
• 1811- Expelled from Oxford University. Apparently, because he was involved with atheist pamphlets that argued against the existence of God and he assumedly gave these to Bishops
• Eloped to Scotland with 16 year old Harriet Westbrook
• They soon separated after 2 children
• 1814- fell in love with Mary (16 year old)
• Eloped with Mary to Europe
• Harriet commited suicide three weeks before his wedding to Mary Shelley in December 1816
• Italy: Mary had nervous breakdown. 2 of his children died. Wrote lots and lots of poems.
• April 1822 settled in Italy
• July 1822, aged 29, he drowned
• Not successful in his lifetime 
• Anti-authoritarian

OZYMANDIAS

• Distancing himself from the topic straight from the beginning with "I met a traveller from an antique land".Though, perhaps, it is still an obvious veiled attack on British monarchy?
• Lexical set of violence, and negative language.  Demonstrates how poem is an attack on the powerful, not a praise.
• Alliterative repetition of harsh 'c/k' sound Reflects harsh nature of main character.
• 'Shattered visage'
• 'Of that colossal wreck,boundless and bare'. Statue has no audience. Alliteration
• 3 TYPES OF SONNET 
• Setting- 'antique land'- another way to distance himself
• Enjambment - natural speech
• Dialogue
• Biblical references. "king of kings", Jesus is referred to as this in Bible. Ozymandias and Moses??
• Repetition of 'and' sound. Approximately 15 times, which could give poem sense of momentum and of time passing.
• No direct reference to King George III. Could be to distance himself and avoid punishment. No press is bad press, didn't want to draw attention to…