Analysis of Ozymandias by Percy Bysoche Shelly

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The “King of Kings” is now lost in the sands of time. The poem Ozymandias was written in the year Eighteen-Eighteen by Percy Bysshe Shelly. This poem was about Ramesses II, or Ramesses the Great, was the greatest pharaoh of the Egyptian Empire, which fell in due time. The author wrote this sonnet with the message that Legacy will forever outlive one man. This is outlined in four different ways.

Meeting a “Traveler from an antique land” sound like he is trying to say this time of the poem is way before his and that of the audience. Ramesses II was alive from Twelve Seventy-Nine B.C. to Twelve Thirteen B.C., well before the years seventeen ninety two AD through eighteen twenty two AD, this is when Percy Shelley was living. Comparing either of those to the years around nineteen thirty AD and two thousand thirteen AD, these years are very distant to that of the author and those who are targeted by this book. Tough this man was way before many of the reader’s times, they still thought that it seemed dead and gone, but still had something to talk about all these years later. Such a great man, just reduced to ruins, but still revered as some of the greatest leaders of all time. This man seems timeless, as well as a man that “Which yet Survive” (Shelley line 7)

The beginning of line seven of the sonnet is foretelling of the future being forever known. I think that Shelley was trying to portray the idea of those who survive the test of time, in terms of history, are far better than those who are a flash in the pan. Ramesses II was a man of greatness, and is still one of the most notable leaders in history. Ramesses, according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, caused “…widespread panic that the world would end with the dea...

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...." Ancient Egypt - Rameses II. Ancient Egypt and Archaeology, 03 Jan. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. .
Mark, Joshua J. "Ramesses II." Ancient History Encyclopedia. Ancient History Encyclopedia, 2 Sept. 2009. Web. 08 Dec. 2013. .
"Percy Bysshe Shelley." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 2013. Web. 09 Dec. 2013. .
"Ramesses II." PBS. Devillier Donegan Enterprises, 15 Mar. 2006. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. .
Revelation (also Apocalypse). Revelation 19:16. Bible Hub, 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. .
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. "Ozymandias." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. .

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