Ozymandias (Shelley)

For works with similar titles, see Ozymandias.

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Versions of
Ozymandias (1818)
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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"Ozymandias" is a famous sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem.

It deals with a number of great themes, such as the arrogance and transience of power, the permanence of real art and emotional truth, and the relationship between artist and subject. It explores these themes with some striking imagery, amplified by a setting–Egypt and the Sahara desert–that was exotic for European audiences in the early 19th century. The poem's sense of distance is further enhanced by its second-hand narration; the commentator is relating to us the words of an unnamed "traveller from an antique land".

1638OzymandiasPercy Bysshe Shelley

Versions of Ozymandias include:

c1817 draft manuscript
"Sonnet. Ozymandias", in Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue (1819)
"Ozymandias of Egypt", in Poems That Every Child Should Know (1904), edited by Mary Elizabeth Burt
"Ozymandias" in The Hundred Best Poems (lyrical) in the English language (1904), edited by Adam Luke Gowans
"Ozymandias", in The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1914), edited by Thomas Hutchinson

Reading of Percy Shellys Ozymandias