Ozymandias

"Ozymandias" (/ˌɒziˈmændiəs/ ah-zee-MAN-dee-

us)[1] est un sonnet écrit par le poète romantique Ozymandias
anglais Percy Bysshe Shelley. Il a été publié pour la par Percy Bysshe Shelley
première fois dans le numéro du 11 janvier 1818 de
The Examiner[2] de Londres. Le poème est inclus
l’année suivante dans le recueil de Shelley Rosalind
and Helen, A Modern Eclogue ; with Other
Poems[3], et dans une compilation posthume de ses
poèmes publiée en 1826. [4]

Le poème a été créé dans le cadre d’un concours

« Ozymandias » de Shelley dans The
amical au cours duquel Shelley et son collègue poète
Examiner
Horace Smith ont chacun créé un poème sur le sujet
du pharaon égyptien Ramsès II sous le titre Publié pour la 11 janvier 1818
d’Ozymandias, le nom grec du pharaon. Le poème de première fois dans
Shelley explore les ravages du temps et l’oubli auquel Pays Angleterre
sont soumis les héritages des plus grands hommes. Langue Anglais moderne
Forme Sonnet
Mètre Pentamètre iambique
Origine lâche

Shelley a commencé à écrire le poème Schéma de rimes ABABACDCEDEFEF

« Ozymandias » en 1817, après que le British Éditeur L’Examinateur
Museum ait acquis le Jeune Memnon, un fragment Texte intégral
de tête et de torse d’une statue de Ramsès II retirée
Ozymandias (Shelley) sur Wikisource
par l’archéologue italien Giovanni Battista Belzoni
du Ramesseum, le temple mortuaire de Ramsès II à
Thèbes. [5] Bien que le jeune Memnon ne soit pas arrivé à Londres avant 1821[6],[5] et que Shelley
n’ait probablement jamais vu la statue[7], la réputation du fragment de statue avait précédé son
arrivée en Europe occidentale. La récupération du fragment de 7,25 tonnes courtes (6,58 t ; 6 580
kg) était un objectif au moins aussi loin qu’une tentative ratée de 1798 par Napoléon Bonaparte. [8]

Shelley, qui avait exploré des thèmes similaires dans son ouvrage de 1813 Queen Mab, a également
été influencé par le livre de Constantin François de Chassebœuf, Les Ruines, ou méditations sur les
révolutions des empires, publié pour la première fois dans une traduction anglaise en 1792. [9]

Rédaction, publication et texte

Publication history
The banker and political writer Horace Smith spent the
Christmas season of 1817–1818 with Percy and Mary Shelley.
At this time, members of their literary circle would sometimes
challenge each other to write competing sonnets on a common
subject: Shelley, John Keats and Leigh Hunt wrote competing
sonnets about the Nile around the same time. Shelley and
Smith both chose a passage from the writings of the Greek
historian Diodorus Siculus in Bibliotheca historica, which
described a massive Egyptian statue and quoted its inscription:
"King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how
great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work." In
Shelley's poem, Diodorus becomes "a traveller from an antique
land."[10][a][b][c]

Shelley wrote the poem around Christmas in 1817[11]—either in

Le fragment de statue connu sous le
December that year or early January 1818.[12] The poem was
nom de Jeune Memnon au British
printed in The Examiner,[2] a weekly paper published by Museum
Leigh's brother John Hunt in London. Hunt admired Shelley's
poetry and many of his other works, such as The Revolt of
Islam, were published in The Examiner.[13]

Shelley's poem was published on 11 January 1818

under the pen name "Glirastes".[14] The name
meant "lover of dormice", dormouse being his pet
name for his spouse, author Mary Shelley.[15]
Smith's sonnet of the same name was published
several weeks later.[16] Shelley's poem appeared
on page 24 in the yearly collection, under Original
Poetry. It appeared again in Shelley's 1819 A fair copy draft (c. 1817) of 1817 draft by
collection Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Shelley's "Ozymandias" in the Percy Bysshe
Eclogue; with Other Poems, [17] which was collection of Oxford's Bodleian Shelley, Bodleian
republished in 1876 under the title "Sonnet. Library Library.
Ozymandias" by Charles and James Ollier[3] and
in the 1826 Miscellaneous and Posthumous
Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley by William Benbow, both in London.[4]

Text

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
— Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias", 1819 edition[17]

Analysis and interpretation

Shelley's "Ozymandias" is a sonnet, written in loose iambic pentameter, but with an atypical rhyme
scheme,[19] which violates the Italian sonnet rule that there should be no connection in rhyme
between the octave and the sestet.

Two themes of the "Ozymandias" poems are the inevitable decline of rulers and their hubris.[20] In
the poem, despite Ozymandias' grandiose ambitions, the power turned out to be ephemeral.

The rhyme scheme reflects the interlocking stories of the poem's four narrative voices, which are
its "I", the "traveller" (an exemplar of the sort of travel literature author whose works Shelley
would have encountered), the statue's "architect", and the statue's subject himself.[21] The "I met a
traveller [who...]" framing of the poem is an instance of the "once upon a time" storytelling
device.[19]

Reception and impact

The poem has been cited as Shelley's best-known[22] and is generally considered one of his best
works,[23] though it is sometimes considered uncharacteristic of his poetry.[24] An article in Alif
cited "Ozymandias" as "one of the greatest and most famous poems in the English language".[25]
Stephens considered that the Ozymandias Shelley created dramatically altered the opinion of
Europeans on the king.[26] Donald P. Ryan wrote that "Ozymandias" "stands above" numerous
other poems written about ancient Egypt, particularly its fall, and described the sonnet as "a short,
insightful commentary on the fall of power".[27]

"Ozymandias" has been included in many poetry anthologies,[23][28] particularly school textbooks,
such as AQA's GCSE English Literature Power and Conflict Anthology,[29][30] where it is often
included because of its perceived simplicity and the relative ease with which it can be
memorized.[24] Several poets, including Richard Watson Gilder and John B. Rosenma, have
written poems titled "Ozymandias" in response to Shelley's work.[27]

The influence of the poem can be found in other works, including Wuthering Heights by Emily
Brontë.[31] It has been translated into Russian, as Shelley was an influential figure in Russia.[32]

Ozymandias gilberti, a giant fossil fish from the Miocene of California that is known only from a
few fragmentary remains, was named by David Starr Jordan as an allusion to the poem.[33]

In the AMC drama Breaking Bad, the 14th episode of season 5 is titled "Ozymandias." The
episode's title alludes to the collapse of protagonist Walter White's drug empire. Bryan Cranston,
who portrayed White, read the poem in its entirety in a teaser for final episodes of the series.[34]
The media company Ozy was named after the poem.[35]
Woody Allen used the term "Ozymandias melancholia" in his movies Stardust Memories and To
Rome with Love.[36]

The poem is quoted by the A.I. character David in Alien: Covenant predicting the decline and
demise of the human empire[37] and referenced in the penultimate episode of Succession.[38] The
work is also referenced in Joanna Newsom's song "Sapokanikan".

The poem is quoted by both main characters, Red and Blue, in the Hugo Award-winning novella
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. The scene of the "vast
and trunkless legs of stone" also appears in the work.[39]

See also
Vanitas

Notes
a. See footnote 10 at the following source, for reference to the Loeb Classical Library translation
of this inscription, by C.H. Oldfather: http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/ozymandias,
accessed 12 April 2014.
b. See section/verse 1.47.4 at the following presentation of the 1933 version of the Loeb Classics
translation, which also matches the translation appearing here:
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1C*.html, accessed 12
April 2014.
c. For the original Greek, see: Diodorus Siculus. "1.47.4". Bibliotheca Historica (https://www.perse
us.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0540%3Abook%3D1%3Achapte
r%3D47%3Asection%3D4) (in Greek). Vol. 1–2. Immanel Bekker. Ludwig Dindorf. Friedrich
Vogel. In aedibus B. G. Teubneri. At the Perseus Project.
d. Desart was "the regularly accepted spelling of the 18th century" (of desert).[18]

References
1. Wells 1990, p. 508.
2. Glirastes 1818, p. 24.
3. Reprinted in Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1876). Rosalind and Helen – Edited, with notes by H.
Buxton Forman, and printed for private distribution (https://archive.org/stream/rosalindhelenmo
d00she#page/72/mode/2up). London: Hollinger. p. 72.
4. Shelley 1826, p. 100.
5. Chaney 2006, p. 49.
6. British Museum. Colossal bust of Ramesses II, 'The Younger Memnon' (https://www.britishmus
eum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=117633&partId=1).
Retrieved 26 November 2015.
7. Khan 2015, pp. 66, 77.
8. "Ancient Egypt. Statue of Ramesses II, the 'younger Memnon'. The British Museum. Retrieved
12 April 2021" (https://britishmuseum.withgoogle.com/object/statue-of-ramesses-ii-the-younger
-memnon).
9. Curran.
10. Siculus, Diodorus. Bibliotheca Historica (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Diod.+
1.47&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0540). 1.47.4.
11. "King of Kings" (https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2013/12/18/king-of-kings). The
Economist. 18 December 2013. ISSN 0013-0613 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0013-0613).
Retrieved 7 February 2021.
12. Mozer 2010, p. 728.
13. Graham 1925.
14. Carter 2018.
15. "Romantic Interests: "Ozymandias" and a Runaway Dormouse | The New York Public Library"
(https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/07/06/romantic-interests-ozymandias-shelley-dormouse).
Nypl.org. 6 July 2018. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
16. Stephens 2009, p. 156.
17. Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1819). Rosalind and Helen, a modern eclogue; with other poems (http
s://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=dul1.ark:/13960/t1bk2mq33&view=1up&seq=106). London.
p. 92.
18. "desert" (https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?q=desert). Oxford English Dictionary
(Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership (https://
www.oed.com/public/login/loggingin#withyourlibrary) required.)
19. Khan 2015, p. 67.
20. "MacEachen, Dougald B. CliffsNotes on Shelley's Poems. 18 July 2011" (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20130305043103/http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/id-245.html).
Cliffsnotes.com. Archived from the original (https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/i
d-245.html) on 5 March 2013. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
21. Khan 2015, pp. 64, 67, 72.
22. "King of Kings" (https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2013/12/18/king-of-kings). The
Economist. 18 December 2013. ISSN 0013-0613 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0013-0613).
Retrieved 7 February 2021.
23. Brown 1998, p. 51.
24. Everest 1992, p. 25.
25. Rodenbeck 2004, p. 121.
26. Stephens 2009, p. 161.
27. Ryan, Donald P. (2005). "The Pharaoh and the Poet". Kmt. 16 (4): 76–83. ISSN 1053-0827 (htt
ps://search.worldcat.org/issn/1053-0827).
28. Bequette, M. K. (1977). "Shelley and Smith: Two Sonnets on Ozymandias". Keats-Shelley
Journal. 26: 29–31. ISSN 0453-4387 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0453-4387).
JSTOR 30212799 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/30212799).
29. Pfister 1994, p. 149.
30. "Question paper: Paper 1P Poetry anthology - June 2022" (https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/sample-
papers-and-mark-schemes/2022/june/AQA-87021P-QP-JUN22-CR.PDF) (PDF). AQA. 14 July
2023.
31. Regis, Amber K. (2 April 2020). "Interpreting Emily: Ekphrasis and Allusion in Charlotte Brontë's
'Editor's Preface' to Wuthering Heights" (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1474893
2.2020.1715052). Brontë Studies. 45 (2): 168–182. doi:10.1080/14748932.2020.1715052 (http
s://doi.org/10.1080%2F14748932.2020.1715052). ISSN 1474-8932 (https://search.worldcat.or
g/issn/1474-8932). S2CID 216431793 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:216431793).
32. Wells, David N. (2013). "Shelley in the Transition to Russian Symbolism: Three Versions of
'Ozymandias' ". The Modern Language Review. 108 (4): 1221–1236.
doi:10.5699/modelangrevi.108.4.1221 (https://doi.org/10.5699%2Fmodelangrevi.108.4.1221).
ISSN 0026-7937 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0026-7937).
JSTOR 10.5699/modelangrevi.108.4.1221 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/modelangrevi.
108.4.1221).
33. David Starr Jordan (1921). "The fish fauna of the California Tertiary" (https://catalog.hathitrust.o
rg/Record/100587131). Stanford University Publications, Biological Sciences. 1 (4): 234–299.
34. Hoffman-Schwartz, Daniel (July 2015). "On Breaking Bad / 'Ozymandias' " (https://www.euppub
lishing.com/doi/10.3366/olr.2015.0157). Oxford Literary Review. 37 (1): 163–165.
doi:10.3366/olr.2015.0157 (https://doi.org/10.3366%2Folr.2015.0157). ISSN 0305-1498 (http
s://search.worldcat.org/issn/0305-1498).
35. Smith, Ben; Robertson, Katie (1 October 2021). "Ozy Media, Once a Darling of Investors,
Shuts Down in a Swift Unraveling" (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/business/media/ozy-
media-carlos-watson.html). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 (https://search.worldcat.or
g/issn/0362-4331). Retrieved 27 October 2022.
36. Yacowar, Maurice (1980). "Reviewed work: Stardust Memories, Woody Allen". Film Criticism. 5
(1): 43–46. JSTOR 44018985 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/44018985).
37. " 'Alien: Covenant' prologue short resurrects some old friends" (https://www.cnet.com/culture/ali
en-covenant-prologue-short-prometheus-ridley-scott-noomi-rapace-michael-fassbender/).
CNET.
38. "Succession's Ozymandias Reference Works on Multiple Levels" (https://www.denofgeek.com/t
v/successions-ozymandias-reference-works-on-multiple-levels/). Den of Geek.
39. el-Mohtar, Amal; Gladstone, Max (2020). This Is How You Lose the Time War. Saga Press.
pp. 7, 14, 191. ISBN 978-1-5344-3099-0.

Bibliography
Khan, Jalal Uddin (2015). "Narrating Shelley's Ozymandias: A Case of the Cultural Hybridity of
the Eastern Other". Readings in Oriental Literature: Arabian, Indian, and Islamic. Cambridge
Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443875165.
Cochran, Peter (2009). " 'Another bugbear to you and the world': Byron and Shelley".
"Romanticism" – and Byron. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443808125.
Crook, Nora; Guiton, Derek (1986). "Elephantiasis". Shelley's Venomed Melody. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 9780521320849.
Mozer, Hadley J. (2010). " 'Ozymandias', or De Casibus Lord Byron: Literary Celebrity on the
Rocks". European Romantic Review. 21 (6): 727–749. doi:10.1080/10509585.2010.514494 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.1080%2F10509585.2010.514494). S2CID 143662539 (https://api.semanticscho
lar.org/CorpusID:143662539).
Rodenbeck, John (2004). "Travelers from an Antique Land: Shelley's Inspiration for
"Ozymandias" ". Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics (24): 121–148. doi:10.2307/4047422 (http
s://doi.org/10.2307%2F4047422). ISSN 1110-8673 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1110-867
3). JSTOR 4047422 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4047422).
Everest, Kelvin; Matthews, Geoffrey (23 June 2014). The Poems of Shelley: Volume Two:
1817–1819 (https://books.google.com/books?id=hvXgAwAAQBAJ&q=doormouse+Glirastes&p
g=PA307). Routledge. ISBN 9781317901075 – via Google Books.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1826). "Ozymandias" (https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MZY9A
AAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA100).
Miscellaneous and Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. London: W. Benbow.
Stephens, Walter (2009). "Ozymandias: Or, Writing, Lost Libraries, and Wonder". MLN. 124
(5): S155–S168. doi:10.1353/mln.0.0197 (https://doi.org/10.1353%2Fmln.0.0197). ISSN 0026-
7910 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0026-7910). JSTOR 40606230 (https://www.jstor.org/sta
ble/40606230). S2CID 162581015 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:162581015).
Chaney, Edward (2006). "Egypt in England and America: The Cultural Memorials of Religion,
Royalty and Revolution". In Ascari, Maurizio; Corrado, Adriana (eds.). Sites of Exchange:
European Crossroads and Faultlines. Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und
Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. pp. 39–74.
ISBN 9042020156.
Glirastes (11 January 1818). "Original Poetry. Ozymandias" (https://books.google.com/books?i
d=TMPPAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA24). The Examiner. No. 524. London: John Hunt. p. 24 – via
Google Books: The Examiner, A Sunday Paper, on politics, domestic economy and theatricals
for the year 1818.
 Carter, Charles (6 July 2018). "Romantic Interests: "Ozymandias" and a Runaway Dormouse"
(https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/07/06/romantic-interests-ozymandias-shelley-dormouse). The
New York Public Library. Retrieved 11 April 2021.
Graham, Walter (1925). "Shelley's Debt to Leigh Hunt and the Examiner". PMLA. 40 (1): 185–
192. doi:10.2307/457275 (https://doi.org/10.2307%2F457275). JSTOR 457275 (https://www.jst
or.org/stable/457275). S2CID 163481698 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:16348169
8).
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. "Ruins of Empire" (http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/V2notes/ruins.ht
ml). In Curran, Stuart (ed.). Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (http://knarf.english.upen
n.edu/) (Pennsylvania Electronic ed.).
Brown, James (January 1998). " 'Ozymandias': The Riddle of the Sands" (http://www.tandfonlin
e.com/doi/full/10.1179/ksr.1998.12.1.51). The Keats-Shelley Review. 12 (1): 51–75.
doi:10.1179/ksr.1998.12.1.51 (https://doi.org/10.1179%2Fksr.1998.12.1.51). ISSN 0952-4142
(https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0952-4142).
Pfister, Manfred, ed. (1994). Teachable poems from Sting to Shelley (https://core.ac.uk/downlo
ad/pdf/12166332.pdf) (PDF). Heidelberg: C. Winter. ISBN 3-8253-0252-0. OCLC 37456509 (htt
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Wells, John C. (1990). "Ozymandias". Longman pronunciation dictionary. Harrow: Longman.
p. 508. ISBN 0-582-05383-8.

Further reading
Rodenbeck, John (2004). "Travelers from an Antique Land: Shelley's Inspiration for
'Ozymandias'". Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, no. 24 ("Archeology of Literature: Tracing
the Old in the New"), 2004, pp. 121–148.
Johnstone Parr (1957). "Shelley's 'Ozymandias'". Keats-Shelley Journal, Vol. VI (1957).
Waith, Eugene M. (1995). "Ozymandias: Shelley, Horace Smith, and Denon". Keats-Shelley
Journal, Vol. 44, (1995), pp. 22–28.
Richmond, H. M. (1962). "Ozymandias and the Travelers". Keats-Shelley Journal, Vol. 11,
(Winter, 1962), pp. 65–71.
Bequette, M. K. (1977). "Shelley and Smith: Two Sonnets on Ozymandias". Keats-Shelley
Journal, Vol. 26, (1977), pp. 29–31.
Freedman, William (1986). "Postponement and Perspectives in Shelley's 'Ozymandias'".
Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 25, No. 1 (Spring, 1986), pp. 63–73.
Edgecombe, R. S. (2000). "Displaced Christian Images in Shelley's 'Ozymandias'". Keats
Shelley Review, 14 (2000), 95–99.
Sng, Zachary (1998). "The Construction of Lyric Subjectivity in Shelley's 'Ozymandias'".
Studies in Romanticism, Vol. 37, No. 2 (Summer, 1998), pp. 217–233.

External links
Audiorecording of "Ozymandias" by the BBC. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/romantics/poems4.sh
tml)
Ozymandias Summary, Themes, and Analysis (https://www.litpriest.com/browse/poetry/ozyman
dias-summary-themes-analysis/)
Ozymandias (https://www.owleyes.org/text/ozymandias) – Annotated text + analyses aligned to
Common Core Standards
Ozymandias (https://librivox.org/search?title=Ozymandias&author=Shelley&reader=&keywo
rds=&genre_id=0&status=all&project_type=either&recorded_language=&sort_order=catalog_d
ate&search_page=1&search_form=advanced) public domain audiobook at LibriVox
 "Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), "Ozymandias" " (http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/ozym
andias). Representative Poetry Online. Retrieved 2 August 2016. "(text of poem with notes)"
The poem, set to music (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MlW6QDsH2U)

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