Ozymandias: The Ephemeral Emperor

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In Percy Shelley’s poem, “Ozymandias,” the apparently grand, self-claimed king of kings proves to be nothing more than an arrogant pile of rubble, buried deep within a desert wasteland. In this classic piece of poetry, Shelley masterfully displays the temporary and insignificant status of mankind, and proves that the true “king of kings” is none other than Time. Shelley does this by commanding the use of irony, imagery, symbolism and using a unique structure.

Percy Bysshe Shelley was born in Field Place, England, in 1792. He was the first born of seven children meaning he was the heir to a large estate and even a seat in parliament. After attending Eton College, he enrolled to Oxford, where he was accepted and attended. However, he was expelled shortly after for writing a pamphlet titled The Necessity of Atheism. He refused to denounce atheism, which created a schism between him and his family.

At age 19, Shelley ran off to Scotland with the daughter of a coffee house owner, Harriet Westbrook. Soon after, during a trip to Ireland, he met the British philosopher William Godwin and his wife, a feminist writer, Mary Wollstonecraft. Godwin and Shelley became good friends and this friendship became the influence for his first great works, Queen Mab: A Philosophical Poem. Shelley fell in love with Godwin’s daughter, Mary Godwin, and the two eloped to Switzerland in 1814.

One day, the couple took a trip to Lake Geneva, where they met George Gordon Byron, more famously known as Lord Byron. They became friends, and discussed poetry and even the supernatural, especially ghosts and spirits. This peculiar topic became a striking interest, and the three had a competition to see who could write the best ghost story. It was during...

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Everett, Glenn, "Shelley Biography." The Victorian Web.

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Ferrara, Davon. "Time: The King of Kings." Centenary. N.p.,

January 25 2002. Web. 26 Feb 2012. .

Gillespie, Patrick. "Shelley’s Sonnet: Ozymandias." Poem

shape. N.p., January 10 2012. Web. 27 Feb 2012. .

Miller, Nelson. "Basic Sonnet Forms." . N.p., n.d. Web.

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"Percy Bysshe Shelley." Poets.org.

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